


Lizbob Supernatural Watching Notes (season 2)

by lizbobjones



Series: Lizbob Supernatural Watching Notes [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Meta Essay, Non Fiction, archived from elizabethrobertajones blog, watching notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 08:58:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 88,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16851091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizbobjones/pseuds/lizbobjones





	1. 2x01

Okay before I go any further I demand an explanation:

* * *

Yep, here’s the endless “Storm’s comin’” with a bonus “Saving things huntin gpeople” from Dean because Bobby and Dean are now going to annoyingly narrate every Previously for a season.

* * *

I think the awesome montage implied the Scarecrow was a demon? Basically everything has been plot and demons and then that was randomly included.

* * *

Oh for CRYING OUT LOUD the truck crash got me AGAIN. COME ON LIZZY.

* * *

Was the demon listening to Bad Moon on the Rise as well as it playing on the Impala radio? I suppose it was just a local radio station with good timing.

* * *

I feel sorry for the truck driver not knowing if he was responsible or not. That’s got to mess up his life. Will he remember that he was possessed?

* * *

Oh hey Dean, you’re looking great! Wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

And yeah those hospital pyjamas are a good look on you. You make everything look like a good look.

… 

Except whatever you were wearing on the DVD menu.

* * *

Aaah those floating red exit signs. If we didn’t already associate them with DOOM AND DESPAIR.

* * *

Gosh this receptionist is so rude. I wouldn’t blank Dean out if he was - oh.

Okay, Dean’s not looking so good.

* * *

Yay, new title card! Demon fire! 

* * *

Sam’s still wearing the same shirt from at least 1x21. This makes the 3rd episode in a row. Like with the Purple Dog Shirt I think this one (especially as it’s all bloody rather than contaminated with just BO) probably got burned for its own good.

His hair has gone to Extreme Wings mode in its distress (Sam’s hair is a separate character).

* * *

Ahaha Dean now demanding Sam gets a hoodoo priest to put him back together. Yeah, he’s had a change of opinion on this since Faith I guess. :P

* * *

Teehee Sam intuitively knowing what Dean said about hoodoo priests. John takes a contrary stance just because Winchesters are not allowed to agree: Sam n Dean are allowed to agree for this episode because of course Dean is invisible so for once there is dramatic tension in them being of one mind on an important issue.

I suppose getting the connection between Sam n Dean was more important than clarifying their stance on using magic to keep the other alive, and they needed Sam to have this stance more importantly than Dean as he was the one saying it to John, and therefore Dean’s made to say it regardless of what his general characterisation (established in Faith) relating to this sort of thing would have done.

* * *

Do we work on the assumption John meant to sell his soul the entire episode, since he asked about the Colt, or is this just some of his excellent parenting, as Sam quickly labels it?

Maybe a bit of both since selling his soul contains an inherent amount of crappy parenting what with passing on the mantle to Dean completely including the kill Sam thing. Which, of course, John has known about the entire time without telling them. It’s a hard conversation to bring up “So, son, you may be the anti-Christ,” but at least you got to try to have the talk. :P

Oh no wait he gives Sam the list of ingredients for the demon summoning then and there.

“Hey so Azazel said he had plans for special children like me do you know what that was all about?”

“Nooooooo I never heard of no evil plan to raise Lucifer I mean what? Who said that?”

(I know I know he probably knew barely nothing about it but still. The paraphrasing is funnier.)

* * *

WOAH dramatic re-focus on Dean looking p’d off in the background.

But I mean look at those arms.

That is a much better pose than the weirdness from the DVD menu. I’m just saying.

* * *

I need to get a cup of tea. Dean being invisibly furious at John is too much for me. I am only a frail creature.

* * *

Baby nooo. :( Poor broken car.

… Poor broken laptop.

* * *

There is definitely another mist machine in the background in Bobby’s yard.

* * *

Sam saying they have to preserve even one working part of Baby is probably pretty symbolic. Dean might have to replace literally every other part but put in that one part and it’s restoring the soul to the car. (And we know the rest of the soul is the things like army men and legos and crap which is in her too.) It’s very much like their actual resurrections. :P Can’t tell if more emotionally painful for Dean’s resurrection this episode or Sam’s at the end of the season but considering the credits are still playing at the bottom of the screen while they have this conversation, it’s definitely an important thematic thing for this season.

* * *

Dean watching John watch Dean.

(Dean monologuing about John watching Dean and talking about how John isn’t saying anything while Dean is saying  _everything_  out loud and John can’t hear it.  _Winchester communication issues_.)

There’s so many shots with Dean blurry in the background of them and then he comes into focus as we swap to him and aaaargh this episode.

* * *

Imagine if John had actually said something though and revealed everything properly. :P Oh man.

I mean Dean forgets all this, right?

(Until Tessa reminds him later.)

(Maybe just reminds him of their conversation?)

Anyway I guess it would have been pointless for plot purposes.

Because Dean forgets everything about this everything he says here is just for viewer benefit.

* * *

“You haven’t even called anyone for help. You haven’t even tried.” Of course, John is going to take it all on himself, and this is him probably staring at Dean making peace with that fact: that it’s what he has to do.

I find it interesting that Dean here does not think that John is capable of helping him all by himself: perhaps from this outside perspective as a spirit seeing John vulnerable and upset by Dean’s coma actually drives home how John doesn’t have all the answers. Dean doesn’t have any faith that John by himself will be able to just magic up an answer. (And then he does anyway but in the worst possible way.)

* * *

“I’ve done everything you have ever asked me. Everything. I have given everything I’ve ever had. And you’re just going to sit there and you’re going to watch me die? I mean, what the hell kind of father are you?”

Aaargh.

I resent that Dean doesn’t remember this bit because him letting loose on John with this is immensely cathartic, for more than the immediate moment. Season 1 was by and large all about Dean doing exactly this, but at the end it was Sam who fell in line with John and Dean who rejected his philosophy (though, I tracked through their approach to MotW episodes, he never truly seemed to be on the same page, merely following the  _ideal_  of the philosophy of them as hunters: saving people, hunting things is not really something we ever see John do. The only MotW episode we see him engage in is the vampire one, where the only civilian victims die or get turned before he’s even on the scene. Later we hear stories about John getting people hurt and killed like Jo’s dad. John’s good at the hunting side of things, but saving people never seems to come into it for him). The end of the season had Sam picking family over revenge in line with Dean’s personal philosophy. Now we have Dean saying out loud that he gave everything for John, and lashes out because once again he  _perceives_  that John is not going to save him, once again failing at saving people, and at having the motivation to restore their family. And John is of course contemplating the action which  _saves_  Dean but at the expense of restoring the family that Dean had been longing for all of season 1.

“What the hell kind of father” is a question we ask a lot and here Dean is basically assigning it as working to  _restore_  the family, and seeing John as not doing that. Since his actual actions also didn’t restore the family but to opposite effect of what Dean is seeing here, I think that question still answers itself but backwards to what Dean was thinking here. :P

* * *

Hey Tessa!

Or whooshy true form Tessa anyway. You were probably not called Tessa until you needed a face and a name.

* * *

The fact she goes to reap a nurse who just happened to drop dead of natural causes really throws things into confusion, considering it’s more natural for her to be working at the hospital to reap dying patients. :P

* * *

Heh, Sam comes up with the same conclusion as Dean but much shoutier that John can  _hear_  that he is just going to confront the demon for a “macho showdown” instead of doing the big self-sacrifice, and brings in the revenge side of things which he already actively rejected at the end of last season. I wonder if Dean is influencing him from the veil. Probably, tbh, since he already put words into his mouth once.

John doesn’t defend himself against the accusations, merely says that he’s doing it for Dean. “it” being implied fighting Azazel instead of trading with him. He’s telling the truth in a way that has no hope of being  _understood_  with his intent and only digs himself deeper. John refuses to share his plans with the boys and continues withholding valuable information that could help them come to a measured, reasonable agreement and a shared plan to the very bitter end. It’s like he knows Sam will argue with him no matter what he says, so he doesn’t bother filling in all the gaps because this way Sam can’t tell him anything about his  _actual_  plan while he’s busy constructing an argument again what he  _thinks_  John’s plan is.

… We’ve reached the point I add my “not a John Winchester fangirl” tag to the post. :P

* * *

“You know, it’s funny, I thought it was your obsession too! This demon killed your mother, killed your girlfriend. You begged me to be part of this hunt. Now if you’d killed that damn thing when you had the chance, none of this would have happened.”

Okay so John is just full on rolling into the lie at this point. He’s still not technically lying about anything except for the dubious choice of words about “Part of this hunt” but it’s mostly all general character stuff turned into what looks like anger over a specific thing which isn’t actually going to happen.

Bonus points: emphasising an obsession being a desirable thing; emphasising revenge missions as a good idea; dragging in Jess and  _Mary_  into the semi-lie just to rile Sam up; blaming Sam for not killing Azazel in exactly the same way he emotionally scarred Dean for life after the shtriga incident (which, while Dean made it square to himself, that was completely in the absence of John, was presumably never discussed between them, and while Dean solved the immediate problem of feeling bad about not killing the shtriga, with John absent from the present day portion of the episode, did nothing to deal with any of the tension between them about that). And all of this is just to snipe at Sam to throw him off the fact that John intends to sell his soul to save Dean.

Especially since he knows he’s planning to die soon he’s basically using this as a last lesson, enforcing some ideas into Sam, perhaps trying to inspire him to get back onto the revenge thing after seeing how he couldn’t do it at any cost in 1x22, and so recognising Sam is most of the way but not  _all the way_  there to being revenge-ready, he tries another bid to spur him on. Perhaps he hopes Sam will think the demon just killed John in the showdown and Dean miraculously woke up and it was unrelated and Sam has basically lost  _everything but Dean_  to the demon…

I’m also now wondering if John is willing to fuck with Sam’s head this much just to ensure revenge from beyond the grave, what he would have done if Azazel possessed one of the boys.

Uuugh Sam’s issues with revenge. See also: Lilith.

* * *

Pfft, Sam tells John to go to Hell. Baaad choice of words, he’ll be there by the end of the episode. >.>

* * *

I think Dean just got so angry he went into cardiac arrest. Ghost powers are  _exhausting_.

* * *

Still think Dean grabbing Tessa is one of the most ridiculous things he’s done.

* * *

He looks so  _small_  compared to Sam. I guess because he’s barefoot all episode.

(A symbolic sign of being dead, isn’t it?)

(Based on conspiracies I’ve read about a certain Beatles album cover :P)

Tessa is wearing shoes. I don’t trust her to be dying like she says. >.>

* * *

Oh, Sam’s changed his shirt.

* * *

Yes, Tessa is dealing with this very well. 

>.>

* * *

She’s so wise and zen about the inevitability of death!

* * *

“Don’t make fun of me.” *Dean immediately makes fun since Sam can’t hear him*

“I feel like I’m at a slumber party.”

WAIT. THIS IS THE PYJAMA EPISODE I’VE BEEN ASKING FOR. Why do we never get things we want how we want them?? The beach episode last season was a nightmare. :P

* * *

“Are you hunting?”

 _Have you met Dean_?

* * *

“You can’t kill Death.” Teehee.

I  _swear_  at some point it just becomes a thing that Dean had to do it. I reflect a lot on Dean as the actual literal centre of this universe and narratively cursed… (Well I reflected on him being the one who’s first booted out of the “natural order” in Faith) and anyway add it all up, throw in capricious Fates and God and all sorts of wacky metafiction stuff and yeah basically he said it enough times it kind of landed on him because being right in the middle of this knot of in-world fate and meta narrative and stuff basically just… doomed him to be the dude to kill Death.

* * *

Still annoyed at John promising not to hunt the demon because he goes off to not hunt the demon.

* * *

Wait so John’s journal had a page on reapers we never saw before despite the fact we had an episode about reapers already while they were in possession of the journal. Pfft. :P

Also it didn’t occur to me that John took the journal back for a while.

Considering that Sam nicks it from him and then John goes off and does his thing and dies and I don’t  _think_  they get another chance to actually give it back to him and then re-inherit it, it says a lot. Dean stole the journal from the evidence box back in 1x01 although John intended him to have it given he abandoned everything in the room (a mild bequeathing of the family business to him), Dean still sort of nicked it anyway. And now in 2x01 Sam nicks it directly from John. I said he already picked family over revenge in 1x22, and all through season 1 his issue was the revenge thing with Dean trying to get him in line to hunt with him and be the good, heroic, non-toxic side of the saving people thing. Dean was Family Business guy and represented family in all his emotional pleading at the end of the season, and all his attempts to get the family back together, blah blah. I guess here Sam nicks the journal for himself, after rejecting the toxic revenge thing that John tried to force on him begging Sam to shoot him in the heart, and we just had that bit where John tries to force Sam back into the toxic revenge thing. But instead he nicks the journal to help Dean with the hunt he found for himself while chillin’ in his jammies.

I guess I’ve found my angle to analyse their motivations etc all season then. :P

* * *

Tessa referring to herself as her true form. Dean flipped out - she got hurt. 

I mean like in 4x01 Cas tries talking to Dean while in  _his_ true form, and he flips out so Cas gets a more appealing form to talk to him.

And Tessa ended up kissing Dean.

*shrugs*

IDK.

* * *

I am interested in how Azazel possesses that janitor, and I’m pretty sure he stays his regular meatsuit for the rest of the season? And the face he has when he pops up in season 6 that one time unless I’m imagining things?

And who else is introduced this season masquerading as a janitor?

Hmm.

* * *

(Also the Yellow Eyes effect is weirdly low-budget this episode.)

* * *

Oh no apparently it improved, there was just one weird effect. I have no idea.

* * *

You know if John and Azazel made a deal, they probs kissed off-screen. I’m just saying.

* * *

I swear Dean’s room gets bigger the sadder the scene is.

* * *

Tessa’s so good at this speech. No wonder she was so annoyed with Dean being useless at the job in Appointment in Samarra.

* * *

*[remembers how I decided Dean was metaphorically an angry spirit all through season 8 and the MoC stuff](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/ghostDean/chrono)*

> TESSA  
> Well, like you said. There’s always a choice. I can’t make you come with me. But you’re not getting back in your body. And that’s just facts. So yes, you can stay. You’ll stay here for years. Disembodied, scared, and over the decades it’ll probably drive you mad. Maybe you’ll even get violent.
> 
> DEAN  
> What are you saying?
> 
> TESSA  
> Dean. How do you think angry spirits are born? They can’t let go and they can’t move on. And you’re about to become one. The same thing you hunt.

Yeeah. I dunno, this metaphor works so well for Dean it just makes me sad.

* * *

“If only the boys knew how much their Daddy loved them.”

>.> Azazel thinks John is a bad parent. And makes a point of reminding John about Meg n that other demon being his kids that he cared about. Pfft.

The show is  _not_  pitting John against Azazel for parenting and making it a blurry line. But it’s not exactly offering us that Azazel’s parenting was twisted upfront despite the fact they’re demons… :P

In fact he’s the one who says for the first time that John has been lying about Sam’s powers to Sam n Dean by not telling them what he knows.

“There’s something else I want, as much as that gun. Maybe more.” Azazel gets way intense and up in John’s space before we see the end of the deal (and we don’t know that John is going to offer himself as well - it’s all been about giving Azazel the Colt in exchange for Dean?). We cut abruptly back to Dean n Tessa, but the implied end of that sentence was “You” right after Azazel started making the demon deal all weird, and we know demons kiss on it.

And  _tbh_  I am deeply, deeply amused by this because they kinda built up to it and whether it was accidentally retconned later and this wasn’t the lore at the time or not (have to wait and see if we see it in the upcoming crossroads episode or if we don’t find out until Dean’s selling his soul?) basically it’s an  _excellent_  duck and dive around this issue, no-homoing it fantastically. :P

Like… if they just randomly rolled with it and showed John and Azazel kissing out of the blue, what even would this show have been?

Pfft. :P

* * *

Do you ever get sad Dean would have gone to Heaven if he agreed to move on here, and then at the end of the season he’s marked for Hell?

* * *

Does he say in Death Takes A Holiday he would have moved on?

* * *

And now for the most ironic line of the entire season, in a season  _full_  of ironic lines: “You have some kind of angel watching over you.”

Argh.

(Level 1 dramatic irony from the actual episode: this was no angel. Level 2 dramatic irony with extreme hindsight:  _Dean Winchester and angels watching over him…_ Level 3 dramatic irony: with that in hindsight it’s even more awful that it  _wasn’t_  an angel Level 4 dramatic irony: the angels are dicks and it moves them one step closer to the apocalypse so they probably wanted it to happen anyway if they  _were_  watching.)

* * *

Sam’s hair is  _so shaggy_.

* * *

Aw look Sam n John fighting again. Just like old times.

Hahaha John trying not to fight with Sam gets an “are you alright?” like he’s just as unnerved about John not fighting back as Dean was when “John” was proud of him for shooting the random demon and wasting a bullet.

Haaaa.

* * *

I don’t get why this scene is used as evidence John wasn’t awful by saying he was proud of them as his actual self: his “I’m about to die better be nice to the boys for once” act  _freaks them out_.

Plus, like, all the other canonical evidence of John being a lousy father.

* * *

Anyway, like with Azazel telling Sam to check the salt lines so he could have his dramatic moment with Dean, John tells Sam to get him some coffee so he can have his dramatic moment with Dean.

Saaam. :<

* * *

Oh look evidence of Dean historically parenting John as well as Sam. Dean was the caretaker to his entire family and that is awful for Dean but he is a beautiful person and it makes me cry.

Hahaha John telling Dean he never complained about his burden: Dean does not remember yelling at him for this  _exact thing_  while disembodied. I suppose adding to how Dean only talks honestly about this shit while not himself or confronting himself or whatever, we get can only face up to John when not himself or otherwise different enough from normal healthy Dean.

* * *

So that line where John is like “I’m proud of you” is immediately followed from Dean with “Is this really you talking?” and I think in the endless John Winchester parenting debate, the fact this actually needed asking, combined with the weight put on it by Azazel saying it first and it seeming out of character, is basically all that needs to be said. ~context~

* * *

John’s last out-loud advice is to watch out for Sammy.  _Sammy_. I swear it’s basically never good when people call him that. :P Maybe a few flippant Sammys over the years from Dean, but like mostly it’s in terrible contexts. :P

Oh man Dean’s voice gets so soft when he’s concerned about John. 

* * *

TBH the fact Dean says John is scaring him and then John says not to be scared, but then leans in and whispers whatever it was he says about Sam, makes me think he probably led in with “Sam’s the one you should be scared of.” I don’t even know.

* * *

Did JDM and Jensen know what John said to Dean? They did a good job looking horrified at what had been said.

* * *

I re-watched that bit with the subtitles on but  _shockingly_  they did not include whatever it was John said.

* * *

Bye John. o/ Your legacy will live on! You did an A+ job traumatising your children just in this one episode, but you were sort of badass sometimes as well. And portrayed by JDM which is an important thing not to over-look. :P

* * *

Shout out to the perfect landing of that coffee cup.


	2. 2x02

This episode’s importance was subtly foreshadowed in 1x21 with the vision Sam had of the nursery with the uncomfortably long focus on the clown in the mobile. 

S’pose you could argue that after all the themes that culminated in season 1/the first episode of this season where Sam rejected the revenge arc and went instead for the family business, symbolically nicking John’s journal last episode, now pitting him against his most deadly foe and testing his nerve and resolve about his choice is a very fitting thing to do.

* * *

Gosh they aren’t kidding around with the montage at the opening of the episode that is 99% recapping In My Time of Dying. Actually worth sitting through despite having only watched last night.

* * *

And the way it cuts to the funfair is  _excellent_. 

Oh man nothing’s happened yet at all and I’m delighted.

* * *

Well I mean by delighted I am actually deeply creeped out by the clown this episode, so I’m kind of hiding from it behind my hands.

*it waves hello*

o.0

*slowly disappears under my desk*

The funfair I once worked in didn’t actually have clowns very often since that would mean paying someone to do it, so they were very special occasion-y, but there was clown-related stuff everywhere.

Also I only started working there  _after_  seeing this episode so the funfair at night with all these clown faces inevitably made me walk around with a loop of “hey remember that Supernatural episode where…?” :P

* * *

Uugh funerals. Ugh soggy Sam and stoically single-tear-shedding Dean.

Sam finds it important to ask if John said anything - probably just so we can have Dean picking up the mantle of not telling Sam important stuff just like John would have wanted (I guess he’s back to being John for the beginning of this season like he was in the opening of season 1?) but if we don’t just assume that line was in there to remind us that John said something mysterious and horrible to Dean and he’s suffering in a silent, manly way about it, and actually look at Sam, he’s very deeply scared at this point: John died and didn’t leave them  _any_  guidance about what to do, and Sam is far from oblivious about him vs the big plot arc even if he has no idea what it entails (not that Dean does either - just that he had a horrible burden/prophecy/whatever put on him).

Sam probably suspects that John knew something more (and even knew John sent Sam away to get in his final words with Dean - no idea if they know yet that John  _definitely_  sacrificed himself) and so would wonder quite naturally if there was something he missed that Dean could tell him if they were being honest. But more than that I think it’s just the void of having someone  _to_  guide them. Even when he wasn’t with John or was fighting with him he was still a fixed point. Looking to Dean to see if he knows what to do next is almost checking to see if he will be that new fixed point (he offered to be a similar thing for Sam at the end of Nightmare) but Dean is just as lost and helpless as Sam - and bottling up a fact that makes him even  _more_  confused and terrified.

Ugh. Thanks, John. :P

* * *

So they stayed a week at Bobby’s before this episode kicks off properly.

All through season 1 they were completely alone and did everything for themselves: it wasn’t just that they were travelling alone or anything… When they go to Bobby’s in 1x22 it’s actually the  _first_  time they meet another hunter (aside from John) and go to them for advice or help. Their first responsible adult who’s not only in the know, but actually managing to keep up with events and knows more than them but doesn’t conceal that - he immediately starts sharing information, even letting Sam take a book with them, while John actively concealed from them the entire time.

This episode goes on to introduce Ellen, Jo and Ash, and so combined with this stay at Bobby’s, it’s the first time they’ve had  _any_  sort of outside support system in the show. (John doesn’t count due to not being supportive.)

Suddenly they’re surrounded by people, because the format has shifted just a bit: without John to aim towards or guide them, they’re, like I commented just up there,  _completely_  adrift. This sort of fits the emotional feeling of them being in mourning, but from a plot perspective they’d be spinning their wheels because their motivation is missing and they weren’t even left hooks to follow Azazel with. There’s no way the show could have just magically made them start investigating the clown thing and actually do a case this episode without having someone tell them to do it, and having some settled base of people they can refer to for the duration of the season (or who pop up on them like Jo does in the haunted apartment building episode :P) is basically the opposite of them searching for one guy who’s never there. As far as I remember they still do everything - except that Jo episode - on their own, but it lets them strike out from a place of strength (not that they recognise it right away since they’re still emotionally gutted :P). Anyway I guess them going from 0 found family to four in the space of a couple of episodes is a pretty dramatic shift.

(I’m mostly taking the time to say this because I saw one of those SPN confessions grumping about them having the Bunker and how it ruined the format of the show, but in terms of actual narrative format the bunker does what these characters and locations do. :P You’ve got to seriously pine for season 1 and season 1 only if you don’t like them having any emotional or plot support or fixed locations they return to, so pretending like having the Bunker ruined how they do things is silly when this episode they get on the case literally because a file about the clown thing was left lying around in plain sight.) 

* * *

*random mechanic!Dean porn*

* * *

I wonder at what point Sam became useful with things? He’s good at fixing stuff in his season 8 flashback and I suppose he had the car a couple of times by then. Dean doesn’t want Sam helping him fix Baby this episode though - which is important for establishing again the link between Dean/Baby with her as an extension of his soul or self or something… (And means we have that tragic season 3 bit where Dean teaches Sam how to fix her.)

Anyway, I wasn’t keeping tally in season 1 but I’m pretty sure I only noted a single Winchester “I’m fine” coming from John? I feel like I would have made a thing about it considering the philosophy of the Winchester definition of “fine” is amusing to me (especially once Cas started trying to grapple with it :P). But Dean says here he’s okay and for Sam to stop asking, when he is blatantly Not Okay (and saying so in front of the hollowed out wreck of Baby is pretty symbolic). (Also he is working on putting himself back together, though obviously not there yet.)

If it was just John so far until now and then Dean starts doing it, that’s another subtle legacy thing.

* * *

I can’t believe that Sam hasn’t noticed that Dean isn’t exactly coping in his own way: he tries to make it sound like Dean silently working on the car is him being fine but I think he means Dean is just acting that way? (I don’t mean he literally believes Dean when he says he’s fine but he is accusing Dean of… not mourning properly?) Ugh I don’t know I’m too tired to work out character motivation. :P He’s upset Dean hasn’t talked about John’s death - for the plot implications of it (”it seems pretty likely the demon is behind all of this”), and importantly, to demand to know why Dean isn’t angry and immediately seeking revenge. At the moment Dean is on a very long slow burn with this anger (some of which he bottles up basically forever pending like actual endgame character development… :P) and being realistic and sensible about what they can do, to contrast with Sam’s upfront hot anger where he wants something to rush at. I guess despite Sam’s choices over the last couple of episodes, now they’ve kind of settled with nothing in front of them, Sam’s left to stew and slip back into feeling like revenge is the most important response to bad things happening to them and without a clear plan he just gets angrier and angrier.

He really needs something to do.

* * *

Ahaha the terrible van. With added bad radio. I swear the local radio station decided to play whatever that was just to annoy Dean.

Because he is in the centre of the universe and this is frequently reflected by what is on the radio (see: the song at the end of season 1, this, Goodbye Stranger, etc :P).

I can’t believe they picked the lock on the Roadhouse. RUDE.

* * *

HEY JO.

HEY ELLEN.

* * *

(hey sleepy Ash who I guess wasn’t punching or threatening to shoot anyone and therefore slipped my notice :P)

* * *

Dean’s annoyance at everyone knowing everything before they do is cute and funny but seriously Ellen’s message was apparently 4 months old and she knew about John closing in on the demon - I’m not sure the boys even knew it was a demon at that point? They’ve been in an informational void (of John’s making, supposedly to protect them), and discovering there’s this actual subculture of hunters and not only that but they keep each other informed and know about each other’s problems and help where they can is kinda huge after all their stress hunting alone in the first season - no wonder they start calling Bobby for literally everything until they’re actual pests to him by season 6 :P They finally learn here that they can ask for help and it’s actually in their culture. They never quite get over being completely isolated (and they’ve got MORE isolated over again lately, especially with no Bobby or Garth who were the main secondary hunters and would have also with their contacts been the touch point to the wider community and they don’t seem to maintain a network of their own visibly), but I guess they semi-consistently know of other hunters on and off from this point onwards. 

Anyway I guess in a few short exchanges this is what opened up all the possibilities about them making networks and support groups and so on, or inspired the ideas for things like Wayward Daughters, which is pretty much a Roadhouse rip off given this is a place with a mom and a wayward daughter of her own. :P Jo is the original. :P

* * *

Hm, Sam says of John’s death, that the demon “just got him before he got it, I guess” so he DID end up thinking that John went and actually confronted Azazel for a fight and lost. I’m pretty sure Dean already has a horrible  _feeling_  that it wasn’t so simple especially since John came in and had some dying words for him, but he can’t prove anything?

* * *

Dean says he’s fine again, and Ellen points out how close  _Dean_  was specifically to John, not Sam n Dean in general. I suppose Dean was hunting with John for a while when Sam wasn’t but it seems sort of unfair on him sitting there in the background. His issues with John are being silently reinforced, since there’s a sort of thing where they’re pitted against each other subtly thinking John liked the other better. Azazel taunted Dean with it about Sam in 1x22 and now here Ellen accidentally says something to imply the opposite in front of Sam.

* * *

Aah Dean posturing at Ash to assert himself - actually feeling threatened by Ash and his haircut because he’s confident and doesn’t care? I don’t know but it’s funny because Dean reacts mostly to dudes he perceives as more alpha male than himself. He seems to make fun of Ash a lot but there’s a lot of serious respect going on there he’s trying to mask.

* * *

Why do I get the impression Ash got struck by lightning not entirely by random? :P He seems the sort to get struck by lightning accidentally-deliberately.

Probably while drunk.

* * *

I get the weird impression off this scene that Ash and Jo are actually an item (open relationship probably :P) and no one ever says anything about it. It goes from Dean watching Ash walk off to watching Jo’s butt to him going to talk to Jo and she’s talking about how all the hunters try to get in her pants, with the implication none of them succeed.

I am genuinely amused by the idea of Ash x Jo being in the background here whether Dean realises it or not. :P

I dunno there’s loads of layers of Dean’s issues with dudes and him trying to pick up Jo and nope-ing out of it before she could even turn him down because he wasn’t in the mood and he’s not even up to his old coping mechanisms right now…

* * *

It IS Sam who sees the folder with the case in, reads through it and decides to follow up: I’m glad it was him after what I said about him sort of being the one who inherited the family business for this season. Dean’s still presumably the one with John’s journal and he was just gatekeeping John’s research by not letting Ash have it until Dean arbitrarily decided he was worthy, but Sam now has to take the lead into these cases to be the one in the place of Dean last season.

* * *

“Planes crash.” “And apparently clowns kill.”

We need a whole season with this level of tension about these specific issues. 

* * *

“I think it’s what Dad would have wanted us to do.” Yep, Sam’s taking on the mantle of doing the heroic hunter thingy because of what John  _wanted_  not anything we actually saw him doing. John always represented revenge on screen and Sam mirrored him a lot in THAT respect while Dean was going for the neutral hunting side of things which ended up  _clashing_  with the revenge arcs of Sam n John. This idea of John wanting them to be hunters to save people altruistically for the good of the world is something he handed over to them before the season started and we never saw him lead by example. Sam’s doing the same thing as Dean last season: filling John’s shoes to do what he didn’t. :P

Dean is faintly stunned that Sam wants to honour John’s probable wishes for them considering all the grief he got for being on the other side of this last season. :P

* * *

FUN.

* * *

Never forget Yellow Eyes’s cameo here. :P

* * *

Interpret the dialogue that comes with it how you like.

(i.e. the dad trying to make the kid look at the scary yellow eyed monster and tell the kid it’s scary and that he’s supposed to be scared of it. The kid really doesn’t care though. :P I think Sam n Dean at least manage an appropriate amount of fear over Azazel - they never quite get flippant about him in the same way, say, uh, Crowley ends up… :P)

~legacy~

* * *

HONESTLY the dorky dad in this is the best character of the episode. Then he looks at two foetuses in jars (like how everyone says Sam n Dean are foetuses when they’re so small this early on), and has an actual jump scare with a Satan model that nearly falls on him. 

I feel there’s a legit commentary here that Yellow Eyes leads to our two babies facing the devil.

* * *

Poor dorky dad. He didn’t deserve this. :P

* * *

Hmm, Sam vs the very short woman dressed as a clown. I forgot about that. I’m going to be  _extremely_  charitable here and assume that was just about her being dressed like a clown that was freaking Sam out because we’ve seen how he reacts to the image of clowns. Not so much to extend to Dean making fun of Sam about her, or the show for including the moment at all. >.>

* * *

… Which is immediately followed by the line about a kid fingering a clown. Yikes.

I’m having the sort of feelings I normally get halfway through a Bucklemming episode that was doing okay until something sketchy happened. :P 

Hm and then the confrontation where Dean gets into all sorts of trouble for being  _accidentally_  insensitive. Let’s just take it as karma for the previous moment and move hastily on instead of looking too deeply at this since once you start poking at ableism and circuses you don’t really stop. >.>

* * *

Here, have Sam’s “i was made to sit on a clown chair” face.

His face is a treasure.

* * *

Hm, then the circus guy makes a little speech about the circus as a refuge for outcasts and stuff, with a very Victorian view on people getting work and not being put in asylums if they come be deformed at the circus for other people’s entertainment. *side-eyes*

Sam especially spends a lot of time calling himself a freak over all his plot arc and seems to take this to heart with his weirdly impassioned speech where after all his shuddering over the clown chair he actually sort of embraces this circus philosophy and says he doesn’t want to go to school or be normal, completely taking Dean by surprise since they don’t talk about this often and last time they really got to it in Shadow, Sam said he’d go back to school and try to be a “person” again. So he’s still equating doing what they do with being an outcast and it being impossible to reconcile with society.

Kinda reminded of Dean in Yellow Fever saying that thing about who hunts ghosts? Crazy people!

* * *

“Dad would have wanted me to stick with the job.” This time Dean actually makes a point out loud that Sam is being totally contrary to his previous position from last season, and Sam says that yes it is because John is now dead. Dean is very sarcastic about not having a problem with that… I suppose because he’s not sure where Sam stands on it? Ideally he’s actually just  _got_  Sam in it for the long term - with John dead this is as much of the family as he can scrape together to do the family business with him… If he was just working on his old season 1 motivations he’d be delighted about having Sam all-in. I’m still puzzling out Dean’s depths this season, but he’s definitely really uncomfortable with Sam’s new position and probably doesn’t trust it  _because_  Sam fought so hard against it, it’s hard to believe it’s totally sincere to have an about turn on his position. And of course what John said about Sam is haunting him and so he’s probably feeling he has to be double suspicious of Sam and anything he does that’s sort of out of character - stating an exact opposite opinion than expected certainly shakes Dean.

* * *

More costumes!

* * *

I do often think about them getting work like this in their down time. Maybe not carnivals given Sam’s clown thing, but they did just get a job upfront which they could start doing that day and probably get paid that week as well. 

They can’t steal  _all_  the money they ever use. :P

* * *

I think I mused before on this kind of shot representing the inevitability of fate: 4x22 has Zach sitting in front of those infinite mirrors right as he drops the truth about them engineering the apocalypse to Dean. Considering we’re still setting up themes and this one definitely comes back around to affect Sam because of his fated role in it being the one taking place while Zach was talking, I think I can say this is probably an important visual. :P

* * *

The problem with trying to find something creepy in the funfair is everything is creepy.

* * *

TBH I don’t get why there weren’t like at least 4 other cursed/haunted objects in there just because.

* * *

Heh, Dean gets confronted and says that they’re writing a book about ghosts. The same cover comes around in season 4 shortly before they find out this is an actual thing that has happened to them. It’s actually a pretty good cover for why they’d be doing weird stuff or asking bizarre questions. Wasn’t the original premise of the show they were journalists or something? As a writer I think they should spend more time trying to use this cover but then I come up with a lot of dorky headcanons about them writing.

* * *

“Get this”! *drinks*

* * *

Not at all suspicious that they followed the family home in a squeaking van.

* * *

Oh well they screwed  _that_ up enough that they had to ditch the van. Bobby will be delighted. (Still think that he gave them it as a semi practical joke.)

* * *

Sam having a go at Dean for his strong silent thing. Dean gets very loud about being okay.

Ouch I don’t think either of them are dealing with John’s death properly. Dean turns around Sam’s attempt to be concerned about him not visibly doing anything to deal at all to Dean being really concerned about how Sam is coping by throwing himself into being the good son to make up for what he didn’t do before.

I’m not entirely sure why neither of them can see that they’re both having a tough time of it, except that they’re too busy watching out for the other to realise they’re in a bad way themselves perhaps. 

* * *

Weirdly region-specific monster way out of its region with no explanation for how it go there. 

Not sure if that’s better or worse than “every culture on earth” :P

* * *

Wait Sam made a show of the pipes being really hot and then grabbed one anyway?

And now they’re surrounded by scalding steam but don’t care?

Oh I don’t know. :P

This is a silly MotW crammed into the plot stuff all around the edges. Takes forever to get back to the clown after the cold open and this finishes with like over 5 minutes to go of the episode, which is a lot considering they normally fit the BM scene into a minute at the end. :P

I think I’m nostalgically fond of this episode’s funfair as the necessary character development for Plucky Pennywhistle’s without thinking much about it beyond that normally.

* * *

Sam’s need to urgently go be over on the other side of the room is adorably un-subtle. Ugh be less awkward Sam. For the good of everyone.

* * *

Jo tries her luck with Dean but he turns her down because he’s just not in the mood any more. We’re kind of so used to seeing Dean really broken these days that it’s hard to summon up enough moment by moment context to remember that this is his first real slump, given this feeds into one problem after another for the entire rest of the show. Other times we see his coping mechanisms where he would try and sleep with everyone, but right now he seems pretty numb, because as Sam keeps pointing out, he’s bottling everything up (because his angst comes from the secret that he’s carrying for John, and so it sort of makes sense he’d clam up about everything - he can’t talk about his grief without bringing into it the final things John said to him? I dunno :P)

Anyway since season 1 had him being so flirty,  _not_  flirting with Jo right now is the shocker.

There’s probably also some stuff to say about the contrast to Sam trying to live up to what he’d think John wanted and Dean, who always tried to do that by default while John was alive, even when he wasn’t there, dropping the casually picking up chicks thing because he doesn’t feel the need to perform quite so much? That, at least, takes considerable effort, so if he can rebel by  _not_  doing something, that’s a start.

Makes you wonder how much he pushed himself into it before.

Anyways, Ash comes in a moment after all shirtless and probably defending Jo’s honour from this gloomy scoundrel at the bar I DON’T KNOW.

*Ash and Dean continue to bounce off each other* (He has a smile to himself about Ash before they leave though. He’s okay!)

* * *

Ahaha Dean walking out of the Roadhouse all “something I got to finish” and you’re like aw yay he’s going to go finish the car and it will be a heartwarming montage of him finally putting her right and everything will be happy again yaaaay.

* * *

Awww no Saaam. You precious cinnamon roll, being all emotionally honest in front of Dean.

*winces* Don’t ask Dean to be emotionally honest with himself, that is  _not going to end well_.

*quietly sobs for the car because Dean had a fraction of a second of inward contemplation and that was enough*

* * *

Ugh coming off the back of season 1 Dean is  _such_  a mess this season and he never recovers from this. Him dorking around in 1x19 before they catch up with John is the last time he’ll be happy in an almost uncomplicated way… I said a couple of times about how he seemed to be on holiday over that little stretch, but it just occurred to me that, emotionally, the damage has been done now and he’s never going to be  _quietly_  so relaxed for… basically ever. :/ It’s all going to be bittersweet or moments of relief in the middle of the storm from here on out from him.

Season 2 is where I turn my Dean!girl-ing up to 11 I guess. :P


	3. 2x03

I spaced out and watched 3 minutes without taking any notes, and then I came back to Tumblr and started typing this but I got 1 word in and waited for auto complete to do the rest despite the fact I am using a dinosaur laptop instead of my phone, and also I was sort of expecting it to interface directly with my brain and write this entire sentence for me based on me hopefully typing “I spac-”.

I can literally promise  _nothing_  about the content of this rewatch.

* * *

Scary monster.

She has a nice shirt but not very good sense about doing that thing where you assume danger is past and step out from behind the tree you were using for cover instead of climbing it or keeping very very still and using your vampire senses to scent if the dangerous hunter is nearby. I mean we literally have  _one episode_  of vampire lore to forget, guys. ONE.

Also I suppose it isn’t her fault but the white really stands out at night.

*enjoys DVD quality blood spurt in the long shot* You miss these things when watching illegally on blurry streaming sites.

* * *

Baaaaby <3

Sam looks less impressed. Probably still hates Dean’s music choices.

Sam thinks Dean x Baby is real. We just had like a minute of car porn; they’re definitely trying to make a point about the sexiness of the car. Hopefully not literally about Dean x Baby because he beat the crap out of her last episode so if she had feelings that would be one hell of an abusive relationship right now.

We… probably shouldn’t talk about Dean x Baby.

* * *

They’re journalists again!

* * *

Sam’s got his hair parted and it’s throwing me off because you judge the season by the hair, and so my brain is like “Oh yeah we’re in season 3 right now, maybe even four”.

* * *

Why did they ask the sheriff if satanists were actually mutilating cattle? Why. Just… At what point did they actually expect an answer to that? Have they just passed that line where they forget that no one else seems to know about the supernatural?

BUT the sheriff did snarkily confirm that Satan was mutilating cattle, which means in season 1 he was canning vegetables in the Hell House’s basement and season 2 he’s fucking with cows for fun.

He probably didn’t want the apocalypse to happen any more than they did, since he had to step up to play his role like everyone else.

* * *

“I’m new.”

Aw Dean. My tiny useless child. I suspect the fact I have never ever seen a Dean as a journalist AU is entirely based on this one little scene.

* * *

But like… What if he  _was_  a journalist and asked all these ridiculous questions about potential satanists and monsters except in a real world AU where it all definitely did not exist, and he was just trying to make a big cryptozoology breakthrough.

And then Cas absolutely did not see el chupacabra but when Dean showed up asking dumb questions about the monster that some motorist apparently sighted running onto his property, he was so bowled over by the sparkly eyes he let him in and answered hundreds of questions about his monster sighting to prolong their ‘date’. And then Cas started ‘seeing’ like aliens or lake monsters or big foot and basically got massively into creating hoaxes just to get Dean to come back time and time again.

And then Dean finds out (well he sort of suspected for a while but he liked the excuses to drive out there and document another mystery oddly within a 3 mile radius of Cas’s place) but the articles are actually doing weirdly well, so they just end up creating more hoaxes for fun and profit.

Until, you know, the inevitable debunking.

Probably by Sam, who would be a srs mystery journalist who believes it wholeheartedly and is very annoyed Dean isn’t taking their job seriously and just goofing off working out with Cas if they can assemble an authentic looking mermaid with stuff they could buy on ebay.

* * *

Anyway back on the actual show, they’ve traded their suits for white lab coats and Dean is perfecting the art of getting people out of the room. Their last morgue invasion was back in Bloody Mary where he was  _extremely_  bad at getting access to the bodies and Sam had to bribe the guy multiple times.

I think later they just start saying they’re FBI and getting access and it all gets very lazy but I like how right now each time is a challenge. :D

* * *

Dean says “So much effed up crap happening in Florida” … is this honestly an ongoing thing that Florida is always where the strangest news stories appear? It definitely seems to be a trend recently online, but I never could work out if people were just focussing on collecting weird headlines specifically from Florida to make it look strange as a meme, and you could find equally wacky ones from across the country/world if you actually cared. 

* * *

There is  _no way_  that head fit in there. Her nose is like 3 inches higher than the rim of the box. Unless her face was being squished in there.

* * *

Dean nopes out of touching the head. They’re messing around and it’s adorable but then he sees the vampire fang hole and gets all serious and actually touches it.

Still kind of counts for Dean being prissy despite them wearing gloves. :P Throw in him making Sam go in the hole in Bugs and we have a little pattern of Dean making Sam do the non-fatal gross stuff already, to go with those other examples of him being really grossed out by germy things.

* * *

There’s like no conflict aside from this goofing around so far. Dean’s working extremely hard to be happy and enjoy the moment and stuff; Sam isn’t being an outright downer about anything (I suppose since they’re waiting for Ash to get back to them so they’re back into what is technically a holiday timeslot for them). But yeah unlike the other holiday episodes so far this one goes dark… I sort of feel the way we’re rushed into a lot of this without seeing all the lead up (like them deciding to take the case; however they decided it was satanists etc because it’s not the twist about what the monster turns out to be that’s important)… Aside from the reference to getting the car back we could pretty much be anywhere (as per Sam’s confusing hair although I suppose at this point it’s new instead of harking forwards to every other season so is a rewatcher’s problem :P)… But yeah, the jumping right in is suspicious. I’m pretty sure I saw Sera’s name go by in the writing credits so I’m musing this is kind of like Faith - except discovering the vampire head is derailing their hunt onto the next problem instead of Dean almost dying.

* * *

So they know now they are probably just encroaching on another hunter? Are they just going to go?

They’re going to give a bar suspicious looks.

* * *

Ooh Dean’s wearing his red shirt again. I thought it was gone but now I’m happy. Except for the fact Dean only seems to wear red when terrible things happen. :P

* * *

I was about to wave hi to Gordon in the background but before I could start typing Dean went up to talk to the suspicious huge definitely not a vampire guy who is totally a vampire and asked how he’s doing and he’s like “living the dream”. I am pretty sure I’m watching an AU of a  _different_  ship happening. 

* * *

“We’re looking for some people.” “Sure, it’s hard to be lonely.”

I like how Sam just laughs at that, and Dean’s side-eyeing the exchange. He’d probably have made it really weird somehow even though that was the most neutral exchange ever. It’s weird when this kind of thing happens to Sam. I don’t know how to react to it. Was this an example of how not to make it weird to prove every time Dean makes it like 10x weirder than it should have been that he’s definitely making it weird as an intentional thing from the show?

* * *

So they’re still just trying to find the vampires? Like… when someone is already hunting them? Don’t they know it’s really rude to get in on someone else’s hunt?

I suppose they have to check what’s going on in case help is needed or you know, in case there is more to it than that… But finding decapitated vampires is already a pretty good sign that whoever’s doing it can handle it. :P

* * *

So is Sam just doing his hair like this now?

* * *

Also… was Gordon drinking water? I honestly took a screencap just for my own interest to boost the colours back up to check he had beer. :P

I mean he could have also been drinking, like, vodka in a pint glass or something.

(It looks like beer when you restore colour to the world.)

(This early seasons desaturation is harrowing.)

* * *

This exchange where they inspect Gordon’s gums at knife-point must look really weird out of context if you happened to to stumble onto the scene in the alleyway.

*guy held at knife point by 2 much larger guys*

*guy lifts lip*

*huge guys lean in with perfect synchronisation at stare at gums*

*guys decide he has good oral hygiene and stop threatening him*

Gordon goes to one tough dentist who does  _not_  appreciate him skipping an appointment.

* * *

“You know how hunters talk.” “No, we don’t, actually.” “I guess there’s a lot your dad never told you, huh?”

(Also he already knew John was dead.)

So not only is this another reference to the hunter subculture that the boys were not raised in (and of course this is now 4 episodes in a row with Other Hunters as well) but aside from referencing the hunter grapevine which I swear the boys never seem to properly tap into (they go from outcasts in their own world to pariahs way too quickly :P) it appears that John’s campaign to keep them misinformed and confused is well-known. Think about it: up until shortly before John vanished, Dean claimed to have been with John “every day for the last year” or something to that effect (in 1x03) and assuming this was a gross exaggeration because he already hadn’t been with him for ages when John vanished, there’s actually a ton of times John did other stuff.

He didn’t meet these other hunters all in the space of the year-ish between the start and end of season 1: they’re all people he’d known for ages. Jo’s dad died when she was a kid and Sam n Dean had never even heard of the Roadhouse or anyone connected to it yet Ellen is connected enough to have known John was going after Azazel long before the boys did, despite the fact she and John were apparently not on good terms still after her husband’s death (when Jo was a  _child_ ). Sam n Dean knew some isolated people like Pastor Jim or Bobby, but any sense of community suddenly springs up this season. 

And the other hunters  _know_  how ill-informed and out of the loop Sam n Dean are. They all know of or met John; they knew about his mission; they never met the boys. They’re young, but not  _children_  at all, except in this world they’re always John’s boys, and right now there’s this perception that they need to be told everything or brought up to speed or generally not treated like equals, always in the role of the children of an equal. I just find it interesting because, going back to how Dean claimed to be with John all the time hunting with him, he at least should have been considered an adult in this world and been in the loop if he was actually working as a partner in the family business. You could say he kind of stopped being an apprentice level hunter when John left him the reins at the start of the show to do all those season 1 hunts alone, but I’m just really grumpy about him having this false sense of equality and then it turns out there’s this  _massive_  network and the boys are known throughout it - and apparently it’s extremely obvious that they’ve been kept at this distance regarding any useful information since they never crossed paths with it until John wasn’t around to actively mislead and distract them and keep them away from the subculture.

* * *

Also, like, if Gordon and John crossed paths, even briefly, surely,  _surely_  the subject of vampires would have come up when Gordon was a specifically focussed vampire hunter with a backstory to do with vampires and an ongoing active mission to eradicate more vampires? No?

See above: literally  _one_  episode of established vampire lore.

It has to be a comment on John’s lack of knowledge or a retcon equivalent of edging around the stuff they didn’t like about demons from Phantom Traveller. :P

* * *

Oh hey Gordon tried to blow them off by telling them about a Chupacabra nearby. I’m not saying my weird headcanon nearly came true, but we don’t know what Cas is up to for another 2 seasons so why not. :P

* * *

Gordon’s car is hilarious why did we not have more Gordon and more Gordon’s car? You know, get in a few more episodes before things take a turn for the worse with him…

* * *

You know how they tend to just recycle the docks they film all these scenes at some docks at? Wasn’t Benny actually here once? 

* * *

Okay Dean’s preeeeetty scary here. He really needs to learn to deal with his anger issues.

Sam’s like :\

Gordon’s like :D

I guess Sam’s hair is just parted from this point onwards? I wasn’t given any  _warning_  to say goodbye.

* * *

I know Sam is nope-ing out of their conversation because Gordon and Dean are being a bit weird about their bloodlust for murdering vampires but this is also the textbook “Okay my brother’s getting on really well with this guy who was giving him heart eyes after all that brutal vampire slaughter, I’ll give them some space to figure things out ;)” move.

Well no not really because last episode we saw how shit Sam was at that when he backed out of hangin’ with Jo n Dean.

Damn you canon, why is Sam all serious and sad about this instead of hilariously awkward?

This episode has taken its predicted turn for the dark. :<

* * *

I find it deeply ironic how Sammy tells Gordon decapitations aren’t his idea of fun.

Well I mean I suppose he doesn’t find it  _fun_  but…

* * *

I mean it’s swings and roundabouts. Here Sam is distressed because Dean got all murdery and scary in  _front_  of Gordon, then in season 3 Sam gets all murdery and scary  _because_  of Gordon. I can’t remember how they emotionally dealt with that except for Dean in 6x19 talking about how awesome it was to Lenore, so that’s a  _lot_  of time to recover from the shock. :P Though season 3 was sort of a bit about how Sam was potentially the antichrist, as believed by Gordon, so……… 

* * *

Random shout out to the motel of the week and its ominous looming cacti that turned out to be an itty bitty no big deal toy.

* * *

Jeeesus, Gordon’s heart eyes for Dean are overwhelming.

I just wandered over to Superwiki to make sure my shoddy hearing was catching everything (because subtitles are for dweebs, she says forgetting to put them back on after having to eject the DVD a few minutes ago due to technical incompetence) and I had a smile at the episode description:

> When [Sam](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DSam&t=ZmM5ZWJjYTZlMTdhZTBiMTI3YzY0Y2Y2NGMzOTBjZGJiMGFkY2Y3YyxBOTJpaEd2RQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F121684153588%2Fspn-hellatus-rewatch-2x03-i-spaced-out-and&m=1) and [Dean](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DDean&t=YmM4OGM5NzU1ODAxMGM0YzUyZmI4Y2ViNzQ2MDRjYTg0NTFiODgwYSxBOTJpaEd2RQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F121684153588%2Fspn-hellatus-rewatch-2x03-i-spaced-out-and&m=1) encounter [Gordon](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DGordon&t=MjA5MDNlZTNhYmVhYTVhZDg0YjcyNzIwOWNiMzkxNDQyODJjMTBjNCxBOTJpaEd2RQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F121684153588%2Fspn-hellatus-rewatch-2x03-i-spaced-out-and&m=1), a fellow [hunter](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DHunter&t=OGFhODRjZDllNWY3OTMwMDNiY2QwMTE4NWYzOTQyNDg5ZTQwNGNiZSxBOTJpaEd2RQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F121684153588%2Fspn-hellatus-rewatch-2x03-i-spaced-out-and&m=1) who has been systematically killing [vampires](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DVampires&t=YTkyMjhkNDIxYzQ1MjcxODdmYzI3ZGY3NTRmNzExZDY1OTAwNDk0NixBOTJpaEd2RQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F121684153588%2Fspn-hellatus-rewatch-2x03-i-spaced-out-and&m=1) in a small town, Dean immediately bonds with the man. 

Like that’s it, that’s the tension in the episode: Dean’s first super intense manly bonding to a dude he finds really impressive at first and it’s the knock on of him getting way into Gordon that causes the strife with the rest of the episode’s events regarding the vampires. I know, I know, I’m pretty sure it’s addressed in the episode that he’s latching onto Gordon specifically to fill the hole John left. In this case that’s the overt text, like with how in the siren episode was about Sam, but oh my god, this bit where Dean’s describing some hunt when he was sixteen, Gordon’s sitting there grinning at his new BFF like he would eat him. And Dean bonds  _hard_  with him.

* * *

> DEAN  
> … So. I pick up this crossbow. And I hit that ugly sucker with a silver-tipped arrow right in his heart. Sammy’s waiting in the car, and uh, me and my dad take the thing into the woods, burn it to a crisp. I’m sitting there and looking into the fire, and I’m thinking to myself, I’m sixteen years old. Most kids my age are worried about pimples, prom dates. I’m seeing things that they’ll never even know. Never even dream of. So right then, I just sort of - 
> 
> GORDON  
> Embraced the life?
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah.
> 
> GORDON  
> Yeah.
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah.

I don’t know why I put in all the “yeah”s :P

But yeah. Last episode had Sam talking about how he was sort of finally feeling like embracing the life because it’s what John would have wanted, saying the thing about not wanting to go back to school, feeling like an outcast. It was all very negatively framed despite it technically being a positive towards the format of the show (i.e. we kind of need Sam on the road wanting to hunt for there to be more TV :P) and Dean was deeply dubious about the change of heart: what Sam wants and needs are portrayed as different things. Look back to Shadow, with him saying he wanted to be a “person” again and then Something Wicked where Dean was saying how he wanted Sam to have an innocent life - without bringing himself into it. Here we have the last bit of this train of thought of emotional exploration of their lives with Dean’s POV: he’s happy about not being normal, and describes his difference to the rest of society in positive terms: this sounds like something he’s carried with him for a while as his sort of personal moment of realisation about his life.

PS: if you look forward to Bad Boys (and then all the way back) it was around that time; probably shortly before this moment? Let’s have a retcon of Dean, still a little emotionally unbalanced by his decision in Sonny’s, taking that moment to reject what he had there and this was how he firmly decided over again that he’d made the right choice in leaving; don’t think about him over and over coming up with these moments to convince himself the normal life wasn’t for him.)

* * *

“Got to keep my game face on, but, uh, truth is I’m not handling it very well.”

WOW you don’t say.

You know, things were going so great with Gordon until he started offering unhelpful advice of deep emotional foreshadowing relevance. If he’d not been kinda twisted, Dean unloading would have been really healthy, but instead we get:

> DEAN  
> Feel like I have this - 
> 
> GORDON  
> Hole inside you? And it just gets bigger and bigger and darker and darker? Good. You can use it. Keeps you hungry. Trust me. There’s plenty out there needs killing, and this’ll help you do it. Dean, it’s not a crime to need your job.

Hellooo season 10. Think about the passionless vampire killing in 10x08 or the opening of 10x19. Dean managing the  _literal_  ~Daaarkness~ in him and the hunger of the Mark by killing “easy” targets he could morally write off. Think of 9x19 where Dean’s “look at me, bitch,” vampire kill was one of the signs of impending doom about his upcoming demonhood - a hole of blackness that built inside him. 

Like obviously this is not thinking of it as foreshadowing, but appreciation of their ability to maintain thematic resonance for a character across an entire decade. :P

* * *

This conversation with Ellen seriously makes me wonder what else happened with Gordon in the past. Sure the thing about his sister is what floats up again at the end of the episode, but that was his first hunt, right? Since then he’s been going around killing vampires, and since  _then_  got onto the radar/fringes off the hunter subculture… He’s got to have done some other sketchy stuff since which unnerved/hurt other hunters or else she wouldn’t be so quick to warn. Also: Gordon giving John his seal of approval, Ellen giving Gordon the seal of  _dis_ approval, Ellen and John canonically on poor terms… there’s some lines being drawn there and her instant ‘woah bad news’ about Gordon puts John on an interesting side, especially considering how Ellen’s husband died: basically what I’m saying is Gordon probably got someone killed.

Which is interesting also to look at the much-maligned mayfly character Rudy in 10x23, going out a similar way of vampire hunt + careless overly violent Dean doing the hunt for the above reasons from Gordon’s little bit about the darkness and stuff instead of the good saving people ideal of a hunter.

Like… Dean’s shitty hunting in season 10 is paralleled to Gordon and  _John_ ’s awfulness about being hunters.

Perhaps there’s another Ellen type out there somewhere in the much more clued in hunter subculture. Getting phonecalls like “Hey so I just got into town but there’s already some hunters here, the Winchesters or something..?”

“Oh no no no, sweetie, no, get the hell out of there.”

“Uh, what, why?”

“You know what, just look up these books by Carver Edlund…”

* * *

Honestly just visually appreciating :P

* * *

And concerned for baby season 2 Dean’s liver which has  _not_  been put to the test much. Certainly not like this before on screen.

Nothing terrible had happened to him yet, but here we are and Dean’s mourning and drinking. Ouch.

We saw him with a hangover once.

* * *

Honestly not sure at what point I stop calling him baby. Season 4 seems to be about the time he reaches manhood to me IDK.

* * *

Probably because 2/3rds of all my many rewatches have been Destiel-heavy rewatches and all my season 1, 2 and 3 rewatching is from before the dawn of time. :P

* * *

History began when Cas showed up btw.

* * *

> GORDON  
> It’s all black and white. There’s no maybe. You find the bad thing, kill it. See, most people spend their lives in shades of gray. Is this right? Is that wrong? Not us. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Not sure Sammy would agree with you, but uh…
> 
> GORDON  
> Doesn’t seem like your brother’s much like us.   
> (DEAN stares at him, startled)  
> I’m not saying he’s wrong. Just different. But you and me? We were born to do this. It’s in our blood.   
> (Dean looks thoughtful)

Mostly to commemorate Gordon thinking Sam was a pansy hippie instead of like public enemy no. 1

Also because this very nicely highlights the dangerous mentality of thinking that because you kill evil and that evil can be measured in absolutes of monster/not monster, you’re clearly the good guy still. Just so long as you keep killing things only that side of the line…

* * *

Also the “in our blood” thing is kind of ironic given how much stress on bloodline there is on Dean in particular (like, Sam’s literally a blood relation but the whole Cain thing landed all on Dean without there being much comment on the fact this all could have applied to Sam too except for narrative neatness and that the destiny landed on Dean because of the narrative symmetry not just the blood. Which is WAY fascinating to look at the in-show destiny being shaped by the meta narrative where it’s that way because of how the show is written but then because of that becomes a thing  _in_  the show… I should save these thoughts for season 9/10…) 

I wonder if Gordon was Cain’s bloodline too.

Headcanon accepted.

* * *

It’s that bridge again!

It’s funny that Sam got hit with a telephone. Communication issues. :P

* * *

Teehee guess what the huge totally not a vampire guy turned out to be a vampire.

 _But not that vampire_.

* * *

I guess he was trying to scare Sam?

This is pretty amusing given how Sam n Benny got on.

* * *

And the moment they don’t instantly kill Sam he just gets extremely snarky. :D

“Yeah Eli that’s enough.”

* * *

Lenore literally says the thing about hunters having their scent and tracking them wherever they go that John said about vampires tracking humans last time they were around. 

* * *

I can’t remember if Eli survives the episode or not, but I really like the idea of him and Benny bumping into each other in Purgatory. He can always die off screen at some point in the next 7 years.

* * *

Dean n Gordon sharing a hell yeah let’s find some vampires smile over getting into this hunt together. Honestly I am so upset that Dean doesn’t get to enjoy nice things. :P

* * *

I am way too amused that the motel they’re staying in is called “Adobe Court” and has actual adobe buildings. They’re in  _Montana_. 

Query: didn’t they stay in a very similar place in Remember the Titans, another episode of distinctly Canadian weather and references to log cabins and grizzly bears in the vicinity?

PS: I am still harping on the grizzly bear thing, a surprisingly ongoing theme in these rewatches.

* * *

Sam should have said that he killed hundreds of vampires.

Nah Dean would probably have thought he was drunk and didn’t go near any vampires.

* * *

“If it’s supernatural we kill it, end of story, that’s our job.”

Heh, title drop. Also, “end of story” - this is a surprisingly meta commentary. Literally describing how an actual boring normal episode would go.

(<http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/121531268258/we-were-very-proud-of-season-one-creator-eric> also they were not looking to do that format any more so a meta commentary on the inversion of the story happening now) 

* * *

“Of course they’re killing people, that’s what they do. They’re all the same, Sam. They’re not human, okay? We have to exterminate every last one of them.”

Remember in 10x08 where we all got very upset about Dean saying all vampires were scum? It’s pretty much this. :P Regressing back to his season 2 chillin’ with Gordon attitude.

Honestly not sure how well a callback works with nearly a decade between but I suppose the people they know are analysing and looking out for this sort of stuff are the people who might remember Bloodlust off the top of their head despite it being like nearly 9 years old at that point? 

* * *

Interesting line between what they are making them inherently evil from Dean’s POV and Sam arguing it’s their actions…

Of course not like THAT is going to make things difficult for them or like Dean isn’t walking around knowing John told him to kill Sam because he’s got supernatural powers and is therefore evil and has to be put down or anything… Or how Sam, at LEAST since Max, has been aware of the choices making the man side of thing of being a supernatural something or other.

* * *

This is kind of horribly amusing:

> SAM  
> Ellen says he’s bad news. 
> 
> DEAN  
> You called Ellen? And I’m supposed to listen to her? We barely know her, Sam, no thanks, I’ll go with Gordon.
> 
> SAM  
> Right, ‘cause Gordon’s such an old friend.

Like, Sam is totally right about that and Dean doesn’t even… think…? about how it sounds to compare them like Gordon is better known?

Honestly have they even had any chill time after all those drinks? Dean’s down like 3 shots and a pitcher of beer at least, and season 2 Dean is not a hardened drinker yet. 

* * *

DEAN. Use your words, not your fists. Wow.

* * *

Ah, Chekhov’s cactus.

* * *

Lenore you precious cinnamon roll. <3

So she just sent Eli into town and he wasn’t around for all this fight? I really hope Gordon doesn’t kill him. I am super defensive of both these vampires. :P

I mean Eli mostly because of his /uncanny/ resemblance to a different fave, since he’s all ‘we should kill these hunters before they kill us’ and is basically here to be all angry. But Lenore likes him and he’s her angry problematic fave to keep in line and stop from killing, just like Sam has to keep his angry problematic fave in line and stop  _them_  from killing.

* * *

Gordon as the monster again sneaking up on Lenore.

Also, he calls her bitch, which is/will be very much Dean’s thing to show when he’s being more than usually awful.

* * *

Sam n Dean walking in on Gordon torturing her and Dean’s face is just like “why are the hot ones always crazy?”

… I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting to ship them like this, it’s been a long time since I was casually down this end of season 2, I had no idea what to expect. :P

* * *

Gordon’s so casual about the torture. “I’m completely chill.” Just another day at the office.

* * *

And then calls her a bitch again. And says it’s completely humane using a sharp knife like she’s just livestock. My poor baby :( *bundles Lenore up in blankets* 

* * *

*Dean completely shuts down when Gordon says his sister wasn’t human any more and he killed her* “You’d do the same.”

Ah, so when Dean is forced to think about Sam being the monster,  _then_  he gets it.

I mean he was previously probably that angry because of the same thing but now he’s looking at it from the other side, having been forced into the opposing view by how callously Gordon talked about killing his sister and realising he couldn’t do it that easily if it was Sam.

BTW shout out to Gordon’s poor fridged sister.

* * *

Yay, Lenore! <3 Best vampire. 

I know she’s in like 2 episodes but still. I’m giving her the title.

* * *

Woop dramatic refocus from Dean’s gun to his angry face.

Love those dramatic refocuses.

* * *

Pfft Dean don’t fall for the honourable manly downing of weapons.

*gets punched in the face*

I suppose that’s karma for thumping Sammy. :P

* * *

“You’re a killer, like me.”

Gosh but the parallels to Cain. I wonder what Cain would have thought of meeting Gordon and how worthy he was. I guess the fact that Dean beat him in fisticuffs here means Dean’s a bit ahead already. Also there’s the debate of how much Cain knew about the Mark being a lock - probably from context, not a hell of a lot. He did seem to think it was very specifically about him and his story and carry his fate in it, rather than being a general purpose doom.

* * *

I guess somewhere off-screen Sam chilled with a considerable number of other vampires, including Eli.

I like to think they made up.

* * *

Aw but there’s such an undercurrent of emotional betrayal when Dean socks Gordon one last time. I know I know it’s all about him being a crappy stand in for John (although WHAT that says about John being a certain way that Gordon sparked off something to Dean to make him fill the void when he had such an immediate turn around on being dangerous and violent)… They were still of a closer age and bonded in such a way it can absolutely be a combination of an ill-advised crush and a ton of daddy issues thrown in. :P Gordon offered a lot of approval John never gave him and tbh was trying to validate him to the end by hoping that Dean would embrace the murdery side of hunting early.

…

Don’t even  _think_  about how they would have got along in season 10 :P

* * *

Continuing the theme of men only talk by punching each other, Dean tries to talk Sam into punching him to pay him back for thumping him in the parking lot. You know, talking is a lot less violent and a better way of expressing your deep-seated emotional issues. 

* * *

“It’s jacked everything up.” Dean now worries about having killed other “innocent” monsters in the past when they didn’t stop to ask (although this is honestly the muddiest situation they ever walked into and in all their previous cases they had a  _pretty good idea_  the monster was hurting people… that we saw. With John, when he was leading the way and making the calls (as we saw him do in 1x20 where he just marched off on the vampire hunt without sharing information) it could have been a lot easier for Dean to have gone along with it and killed innocent monsters on say-so.) 

He says about “the way Dad raised us”, blaming the black and white monster mentality directly on him where it belongs. This sudden remorse and worry that he’s hurt innocents - now he’s learned monsters absolutely  _can_  be innocents - is genuinely upsetting him, which I think, after such a harsh Dean episode, is the real credit to his character. He doesn’t just learn a specific lesson about himself or even this particular monsters, but looks back on their entire history and re-evaluates his life in light of the new info… And identifies that it was how John raised them, that mindset that Gordon identified with in Dean and Dean recognised in Gordon: the link to the unsubtly awful hunter and John is laid out for us plain to see.

> SAM  
> Dean, after what happened to Mom, Dad did the best he could.
> 
> DEAN  
> I know he did. But the man wasn’t perfect. And the way he raised us, to hate those things; and man, I hate 'em. I do. When I killed that vampire at the mill I didn’t even think about it; hell, I even enjoyed it.
> 
> SAM  
> You didn’t kill Lenore. 
> 
> DEAN   
> No, but every instinct told me to. I was gonna kill her. I was gonna kill 'em all.

Aurgh, but look at him recognising that he was raised with a toxic mindset and that he has been  _conditioned_  to hate monsters. Sam even accidentally acknowledges it: he’s kind of defending John for seeing the world in black and white, from the perspective that he just wanted to kill evil and protect his remaining family, and so he would be looking at it this way, but it’s the same black and white revenge attitude that is responsible for John conditioning a hate response in his sons. At least in this case, though, Sam is  _not_  like John, because while his personal response to stuff has the same rage involved, he’s always set up as more distanced from the hunting side of things, getting out when he was younger and spending formative years away from John, and so he has the emotional space to be the one who can see this full picture first and accept it before Dean, who’s been deep in this conditioning the entire time and has never had a step back to think about what they do, as it always seemed the right thing to him.

This episode is definitely very much about addressing how Dean was raised in this black and white morality culture of violence and hatred; everything from bonding with Gordon to punching Sam and stuff. 

* * *

So like Dean offered to be a fixed point for Sam after Nightmare, here Sam offers that he’ll help morally guide Dean and Dean subtly accepts that Sam knew better and his own thinking was flawed: I don’t know how much Dean actually starts routinely deferring to Sam’s morality after this, because that really doesn’t sound like him on a day to day basis, but I think that was important for him realising he needs to change some of his world views, and shift into someone who can see the shades of grey he was talking about.

You know, like this :P

DID YOU REALLY THINK I WAS GOING TO MAKE IT THE WHOLE EPISODE?

I am weak.

* * *

Bonus gratuitous “I just set this as my desktop” screenshot. :P

_what a look_.

* * *

The deleted scenes are in full colour. I am scared and confused. (I mean I knew that because I’ve watched a few without comment, but this is the first time I’ve felt like commenting. I am pretty sure I heard someone say the desaturation was the cameras? But these deleted scenes have our boys all pink and healthy. The gloom n doom of the early seasons was a filter. You have been lied to.)

In the deleted scene: Sam is researching the dead vampires they’d just found, presumably after the morgue and before the bar, and refers to them as victims, to which Dean chuckles and says that’s funny. See above: everything about him and/or Gordon treating vampires like animals.

I am amused by Dean saying no one would suspect the cute waitress at the diner when the only vampire they see in its natural habitat is Eli the bartending vampire.

“I’m happy you’re happy but don’t you think after everything that happened with Dad you’re acting a little too caffeinated(?)” (wow I am deaf) (*aurally squints*)

“I’m enjoying my work, Sammy. You oughta try it some time.”

* * *

Anyway. Woo vampires. Boo incredibly shortlived Dean/Gordon ship. Woo them clawing their way back to emotional stability and trying new things.

Boo that trying new things did not involve making out with Gordon before it turned out he was awful.


	4. 2x04

Or: I think I would make a pretty plausible zombie right now D:

* * *

The previously montage (”hunts things people saving” aside) is  _entirely_  about how fucked up Dean is right now. Awesome.

* * *

Oh YEAH. The Nice Guy friendzone bro villain. Hah. 

He gives the non-zombie-girl a bag of M&Ms. I am starting to wonder if there is some subtle product placement.

* * *

Here’s a rather more overt message about not using your phone while driving, repeated many other times throughout the show. The fact John Winchester answers his phone while driving is starting to feel like subtle propaganda against him. I approve. :P

* * *

I paused to reply to my brother on Skype and when I looked back I realised I’d caught Dean’s face right after he says there was nothing left to bury of Mary after the fire. 

Ouch?

* * *

“She has a headstone.” “Yeah put up by our uncle, a man we’ve never even met.”

 _Dude_. Was he in season 6?

There’s a stray Campbell wandering around. I’m pretty sure they were all cousins.  _Where was the uncle in season 6_. 

Where was he in the flashback episodes?

Oh my god there’s a stray character just  _around_. GUYS.

* * *

“No one asked you to come.” They literally have the one car between them, which Dean always drives right now. (And they aren’t routinely car thieves yet.) They are right in the middle of the time that is the most joined at the hip they will  _ever_  be. I fail to see how Sam figured Dean wouldn’t come. :P 

(I guess this is a continuation of their holiday time between plot episodes, and they’re not actively looking for a case, but making a trip for personal reasons, so since they’re not hunting they might assume they’re not  _obligated_  to be together.)

* * *

Dean pretending like hangin’ at the Roadhouse would be awkward and making small talk, despite how taken with Ash n Jo he was. Aww. It’s obviously false to throw Sam off. :P Least convincing Dean has ever been. 

I mean he  _really_ does not want to go to Mary’s grave  _but_  the idea of deliberately  _not_  doing it is even worse? So we get him hovering in this limbo of being stuck with going but not wanting to but not wanting to not go :P

Aw Dean.

* * *

He compromises by taking a stroll around the graveyard like this  _isn’t_  what they do for a job all the time anyway. Like, people do that sort of thing for peace or contemplation or whatever, but it’s just a part of his work so  _of course_  wandering around the graveyard leads him to a case and not to a level of peace and contemplation that might have helped him build himself up to actually visit Mary’s grave.

* * *

How often do they stumble onto a hunt?

* * *

Ooh more college aged stuff. We’ve got to the point where it’s weird and invasive for them to be around students (which… isn’t helped by writing Dean perving on them *glares at 10x13*) but in the early seasons even older highschoolers were sort of… at least within a bracket of people they could talk to without it being an awkward generation gap that would get commented on in the text. And they just act like they were friends of Angela because why not - Sam’s, what, 23? He’d still be studying if he had gone to law school!

* * *

I mean they just show the outside of campus and skip to them talking to the professor but I’m pretty sure they at least spend  _some_  time with people her age too. :P

* * *

Sam’s face is amazing here. Like, >:| at Dean any time the professor isn’t looking, then caring sympathetic talking to mourning fathers face the moment he’s got focus on him. :P

Sam is still pretty consistently made to resist hunts, but, like, the last few have all been extenuating circumstances, like clashing with John over the vampires or finding out the  _other_  vampires were friendly. In this case there’s nothing to make him  _not_  want to do it except for the fact he’s annoyed with Dean for not mourning properly. He did the demonstration at Mary’s grave of how you were  _supposed_  to do it (I mean not devaluing how he felt - of course he’s allowed to get tearful about his dead parents and going to the grave and performing that expected (pretty normal) ritual was what he felt he needed to do) but then he found Dean cheerfully finding a case off on the other side of the graveyard. Now they’re on it, and even if the graveyard had pretty compelling evidence that something weird happened, Sam’s just going to resent it all the more because Dean… hasn’t earned doing this case? Sam wants an expression of emotion - probably a  _shared_  moment of sadness instead of Dean wandering off, but at  _least_  evidence. He is worried through this that Dean isn’t coping well - like their argument in 2x02, and like Dean admitted to Gordon in 2x03… Sam probably partially engineered the idea to go to the grave with the hope he  _could_  make Dean openly express some emotion about the whole thing to help him move on.

S’not how Dean works though. :P Even if it’s all awful and bunched up in there and he desperately needs to do this, he needs to be kicked to absolute breaking point to express anything completely sincere, and so it always goes. :P

* * *

They play grief counsellors so often with people like Angela’s dad while trying to drop hints about ghosts I suppose Sam feels like he can start actually applying it usefully to Dean? :P

* * *

Sam actually tries applying his non-grief counsellor training on Dean and it goes badly enough that he gets to the point where he’s convinced he’s accidentally riled Dean up enough to hit him again. He stands there being infuriatingly calm and understanding while bringing up awful stuff Dean doesn’t want to think about, while pretty much outright denying that there’s a case which Dean is convinced is real and he’s just doing business as normal to cope. Obviously Sam’s right that Dean IS emotionally wrecked by everything but Dean’s right there is a case and working is what’s been getting him through everything…

* * *

It is interesting that Angela’s story is one totally about mourning as well (and that we’re only getting this overt exploration 3 episodes after John died). She’s mourning a break up when she dies, and then everyone is mourning her and it’s grief that makes that guy bring her back - and then after that people are mourning the people she kills I guess :P It’s not just the zombie parallel which Dean relates to directly, but we see a ton of grief expressed all over this episode.

So far we had the dad having normal deep sadness about her death: he’s not actually haunted by her literally but he relates to the words Dean says implying a haunting, just because letting go of someone’s presence is hard and can BE like being haunted, and then he talks about how he still accidentally phones her sometimes: basically, even though he’s unrelated to the zombie plot and doesn’t seem to have had any interaction with the zombie, he has this sense of her not being totally gone yet. (He doesn’t, on the other hand, try resurrecting her - Dean suspects him probably because he suspects John did the deal to bring him back, so he thinks it  _would_  be a father that did it?)

Now we cut to her ex-boyfriend watching videos of them together in happier times, actively choosing to remember her and reliving their time together. Her presence isn’t intruding exactly against his will in terms of grieving until her, uh, actual presence intrudes. *blood splatter*

Probably a metaphor tbh. :P

* * *

And now the roomie who’s sobbing everywhere and going through a  _lot_  of tissues. She’s still surrounded by Angela’s presence - Dean says he’s there to pick up Angela’s things, so this house is probably full of reminders of her.

I think this girl slept with her boyfriend or something? I can’t remember :P Oh, yeah, that’s why she’s crying. So very  _unwelcome_  reminders of Angela everywhere.

Ah, and she thinks that Matt killed himself over his grief over Angela, and is mourning Matt although her tears are sort of implied to be about Angela until we find out how it actually was?

* * *

IDK where this is going but I suppose a picture will emerge :P

* * *

Apparently unholy ground kills goldfish. Considering my own incompetence at keeping swimmy things alive I’m just going to assume we have a zombie neighbour or something instead of worrying about overfeeding them. 

* * *

Dean keeps on saying how he’s not getting the angry spirit vibe from Angela, despite the fact she’s been mysteriously seen a few times and slashed a throat. To most people this would probably be enough? I know they’re probably just writing like this because they don’t want them to go off immediately on the angry spirit thing because it will focus the story too quickly on the wrong answer, so they’re just deferring finding out what she actually is. But it’s making it so Dean doesn’t just stumble on this case: he’s being really smart about it, and it’s showing how he’s so good at what he does, little details affect him. It’s probably his excellent pattern recognition again: he know how a ghost hunt is meant to go, and so when things don’t fit into that pattern they stand out immediately to him.

Gosh, just, I don’t know, I like compiling all these more subtle moments of Dean being clever.

I mean he comes in the motel room all angry with Sam like “I know how to do my job,” which he’s demonstrating as well, it’s just nice to see and have it backed up with example: he’s not just sounding off about doing what anyone could do. He’s bringing something to this hunt that someone else might not have even if they were actively engaged instead of actively disengaged like Sam.

* * *

Which… well, he’s being set up to be really pig-headed this episode (kind of like how Dean was so awful in Provenance) which is really convincing me the episodes have POV and the opposing brother gets caricatured a little bit in opposition. He goes along with Dean to talk to the professor but keeps a closed mind about the case and is convinced Dean is making it up as part of  _his_  grief, the same as the grieving father could be just imagining Angela’s presence because he misses her (his lines about phoning her blurring the line between grief and what supernatural things could actually happen but be mistaken for it - just like something supernatural is happening and Sam is mistaking it for Dean’s grief). 

I think this is really starting to stress how they are stuck together actually. They fight and Dean goes out saying he’s going  _alone_  to a bar and then we next see them in the same place with Dean walking in on Sam about to watch porn? I can’t remember the exact character arc of this season but Tall Tales is around here somewhere and has them climbing the walls with frustration at being together all day long. I think this is early mood foreshadowing.

Not actually sure we’ve had porn mentioned so far? Which makes it interesting that Sam’s the first one connected even though Dean’s by far the more sexual brother who basically gets every other porn reference in the show. Anyway Sam is engaging in this  _really_  solitary personal space requiring thing, having been left alone for the first time in ages (considering we basically never see them get their own motel rooms no matter how pissed off they are with each other) and as soon as he turns the TV on Dean comes walking right back in. 

I guess season 1 had them clinging to each other out of fear and necessity, and now they’re in a different stage of their life and they need to redefine boundaries and what they want out of each other, and right now they’re not being emotionally cooperative in either direction because of that since each butts into the other when they try and stretch out.

* * *

Oh my god they  _literally_  use the grief counsellors thing as a cover. 

~themes~

* * *

Also as I was just musing, they are literally the worst qualified people for this ever since they’re having such a lousy time of sorting their own grief out. :P

“Grief can make people do crazy things.”

(They say to the zombie-raising necrophiliac)

“If Matt killed himself it wasn’t because of grief. It was guilt.”

I have a feeling this thematic thing will come back around towards the end of the season after someone feels terrible about letting someone else get killed on their watch and does something extremely self-destructive to fix it. :P

* * *

So Sam (wearing the same clothes as 1x21-2x01 so I guess he didn’t burn that shirt after all :P) comes along with Dean, and  _then_ Dean starts suspecting it might be a vengeful spirit after all. It’s not like it’s Sam’s fault he’s suddenly barking up the wrong tree, but it is interesting Dean was following some very specific zombie leads and thinking about it not as a ghost then Sam joins him and they fall back into an old pattern.

Bonus: conversation about burning the bones - uh, no she’s like a week dead. There’s something  _wrong_  about this whole thing and it’s highlighting that their method seems dodgy.

I suppose since they’re about to find out the truth they need to be set up to be proven wrong which means giving them a stance on what she might be to have a clearer contrast once they discover it’s not that…

(Sorry, I spend a lot of time obsessing over these little narrative details… I’m sort of teaching myself how to write case fic as I go :P) 

* * *

Grave digging time!

“Ladies first.”

Once more Dean makes Sam do the potentially gross thing, although there’s a scale down of Sam protesting each time. Still, 3 times is a pattern. :P

OH LOOK SHE’S A ZOMBIE

It’s probably pretty gross she’s still in the dress she was buried in?

I mean on the scale of gross I am typing this while ignoring a dude making out with a zombie on the other screen.

* * *

They’re still wearing the same clothes they were gravedigging in when they go to confront the dad.

I am starting to come to the unfortunate conclusion that the Winchesters probably actually smell awful like 90% of the time.

…

Probably don’t smell as bad as the zombie. 

* * *

Dean hammering on the door of the Prof’s house, and Sam tells him to chill before the door is answered. He’s noticeably angry about this.

Ah, they were at the library (I… suppose that’s why they’re in the same clothes, but I question that they were let in covered in grave dirt. :P). I suppose Dean was twitchy and angry about this the entire time they were researching. He is always so fun when he’s in a mood. :P I wouldn’t want to sit in the library with him while he was like that.

* * *

“What’s dead should stay dead!”

Literally never on this show. :P

This is so tragic not because it’s necessarily ironic about Dean “died 1000 times and that was just another Tuesday” Winchester saying this, but because at this point he’s been denied death  _twice_  by supernatural means, both times by the intervention of his family, so in the  _moment_  it’s really depressing because death has just hovered around him so much and it hasn’t quite become a punchline yet about the Winchesters… So far (he never even technically died, just got  _really_ close). He’s kinda shaken loose enough to now be reckless - not like season 3 reckless where he knows he’s definitely dying anyway, but reckless at least that he’s got this sense of being on twice borrowed time from other people when he shouldn’t be. 

* * *

> SAM  
> Dean, I don’t scare easy, but man, you’re scaring the crap out of me.
> 
> DEAN  
> Don’t be overdramatic, Sam. 
> 
> SAM  
> You’re lucky this turned out to be a real case. Because if it wasn’t you would have just found something else to kill. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Wha-
> 
> SAM  
> You’re on edge, you’re erratic - except for when you’re hunting, because then you’re downright scary. You’re tailspinning, man. And you refuse to talk about it and you won’t let me help you.

I am STARTING to suspect my season 10 knowledge is throwing me off from seeing where Dean is wonky. In hindsight him and Sam yelling at each other is actually fairly uncommon in season 1, and this conversation is probably influenced by him hitting Sam in the previous episode as well (referenced in their earlier fight where Sam asked if Dean was going to hit him again or something). But really only him yelling at the professor this episode has been outright alarming. And it’s for pretty well-founded reasons from Dean’s POV because this is something that’s  _massively_  upsetting him about his life. 

Eurgh he just becomes this angry heavily drinking ball of angst for the entire show and seeing it at its roots is confusing me as much as Sam’s new hairstyle showing up for the first time. This is how they  _always_  are in my head, so them shedding their more childlike characteristics of being happy and/or fluffy is slipping into something I don’t notice changing until it’s too late because now they’re just the default version of themselves. :P

* * *

> DEAN  
> I can take care of myself, thanks. 
> 
> SAM  
> No, you can’t. And you know what? You’re the only one who thinks you should have to. You don’t have to handle this on your own, Dean, no one can. 
> 
> DEAN  
> (overlap)  
> Sam, if you bring up Dad’s death one more time I swear… 
> 
> SAM  
> (overlap)  
> Stop. Please, Dean, it’s killing you. Please. We’ve already lost Dad. We’ve lost Mom. I’ve lost Jessica. And now I’m going to lose you too?

Argh Sam. Aaargh.

He’s been trying to voice these concerns the entire time, and I think he finally gets through how  _he_  is scared about Dean here, which, if nothing else, Dean pays attention when Sam is upset or threatened. It stops the argument anyway.

Not sure Dean took much on board regarding his own behaviour but he understands Sam anyway. :P He’s still defending the fact they need to kill the zombie and of course his hunt is justified as far as he cares so he’s not being weird or obsessive to pursue it.

(I think it was just really unfortunate timing a zombie showed up right when he was at his worst with coping with grief :P)

* * *

*shudders at the zombie being all seductive* Giving the Nice Guy™ his reward for sticking with her even through death. Yep, this is a normal message about the healthy relationship of ending the friendzone through necromancy.

Moving on…

* * *

Oh no, That Shirt has shown up. Whhyyyy. What did I ever do to deserve this?

  


TBH I think it’s matched to the curtains and general theme of the motel.

  


Which I am not sure is an argument in its favour but apparently it’s thematically relevant.

I am not sure what pink squiggles have to do with anything.

* * *

Anyway yay much discussion of zombie lore and acknowledging that people are kinda obsessed with zombies making it a mess of non-facts for the discerning zombie hunter.

I’d kind of liked a cracky episode where they were running around trying  _everything_  on her.

* * *

Is this the first monster that’s affected by silver? (I can’t remember if that got retconned to shifters or if it was in Skin.)

It sort of ended up pretty much all monsters were affected by silver, but the zombie is not technically a monster? She’s just a reanimated human… I wonder what the lore is with regards to zombies and souls. I’d guess that there’s no spell to whack a soul back in a body so she’s kind of our first soulless thing (and doesn’t seem to act TOO much out of line to that idea?) and that’s the actual inherent wrongness of her? Angela’s soul is off in Heaven, and the spell just propped up her meatsuit again. Her deciding to just go out and murder the people that wronged her and how she generally lashes out seems pretty within the bounds of the soulless people we’ve seen on the show…

Which does make me wonder about the silver, except that perhaps it’s a side-effect of the spell e.g. because it’s dark magic the pure metal disrupts that?

I dunno they never explain how any of it works on anything, I just like speculating. :P

* * *

“You got your journal, I got mine.” Which, while funny in context, does have Sam being the one leafing through John’s journal again - it’s sort of been symbolically all season so far, while it defaults to being Dean’s for most of the show? Like at this point he seems to just keep it in his inside pocket for luck more than anything. So it’s interesting that once again Sam is shown as the one holding the journal, and there’s a nod to that.

* * *

“It’s your grief counsellors. We’ve come to hug!”

Current top funny line of the season which all other lines will be judged against.

* * *

“Sure looks like a zombie pen to me.”

Dean honestly how much experience of zombies do you actually have that is not from a movie.

* * *

“Takes two to have, you know, hardcore sex.”

Fine, okay, sorry grief counsellors line, you had your time in the sun.

* * *

Girl fight. Bleh, jealous women scrapping over a dude. My favourite trope!

* * *

Oh hey more spirally bits on Angela’s old house’s windows:

* * *

Dean continues to be kinda scary towards Neil the Necromancer.

* * *

Though he does offer him an out to not be murdered by a zombie.

Very quick thinking from Dean again to come up with the ploy to lure her back to her grave. :3 

Which… Neil the Necromancer doesn’t take the offer. He’s so dead.

* * *

“If you love me you’ll make sure no one hurts me again.”

Zombies are preeetty manipulative.

I feel I should be keeping track of all the twisted definitions of love on the show.

* * *

Don’t thiiink she knows what love is about at all considering she shrieked that she loved him and then snapped his neck :P

* * *

Heh, Angela is like “wait! I’m still a person!” and Sam shoots her in the head. It was literally last episode it was established Sam’s willing to hear out a monster if they’re sympathetic. But nah, she killed one person they already knew about for sure and attacked someone else (also has an aura of unholiness) so he’s heard enough. :P

* * *

Hilarious seeing her run faster than lanky great Sam. :P

* * *

Aaand Dean repeats for the 3rd time the episode a variation of “What’s dead should stay dead.” There is  _deeeefinitely_  something on his mind. :P

* * *

*continues disapproving of the shirt*

I do like this bit like “Oh great acting choices from Jared not to use this hand the whole time…” Nope, it’s just legitimately broken. Give him some bonus points for doing this episode without a cast before they could write it in for him. :P

I love the cycle of time in this show. The  _glory_  of the season 2 parallel in season 10 with Sam with a broken arm again and nope it’s still not intentional or symbolic it’s just Jared can’t go more than a few years without maiming himself. :P

* * *

Aw and then Dean looks back at Mary’s grave. :’)

* * *

Hm there’s still 4 minutes left. Uhoh.

* * *

Dean’s talking about feeeelings.

Well he’s apologising.

Oh, not just for his anger over the last couple of episodes, but for John’s death too. BACK UP, DEAN. Ugh. *grabs John’s face and points him at this moment* EMOTIONALLY SCARRED BABY BIRDS. LOOK AT THEM. YOU DID THIS.

* * *

“I don’t know how the demon’s involved. I don’t know how the whole thing went down, exactly.”

That phrasing is  _alarmingly_  reminiscent of what Cas says while watching Crowley make that deal in his introduction scene.

I’m just sayin’.

Azazel and John made out and that’s canon. :P

* * *

“I shouldn’t have come back. It wasn’t natural. And now look what’s come of it.”

*angrily hugs a cushion* (”what” being one of the only two people in the universe Dean labelled as being close to him being dead. When he puts it like that…)

* * *

“I was dead. And I should have stayed dead.”

Welp. :P No one ever accused this show of being subtle.

* * *

Single manly tear descends.

* * *

Aaaand fade to black. That was grim. :P

Uugh but Dean’s sense of living outside of his time. He  _would_  be the guy to be made immortal, that even Death said he couldn’t kill. The universe must think Dean vs dying is a complete joke. Like, “Did you hear Dean Winchester took the Mark of Cain?” “Oh for Chrissakes, he would wouldn’t he?”

Argh, there’s no way to joke about this ending to make it better, I quit. :P


	5. 2x05

Back to the plot episodes! \o/

By plot episodes I mean they’re done emotionally tormenting Dean for now so we watch Sam get put through the wringer instead.

* * *

The montage goes from Sam n Dean talking about Max being a monster to John whispering whatever that was in Dean’s ear. In hindsight, that’s a fairly obvious link. :P

* * *

Hey, it’s that clock tower!

* * *

I do like how the doctor is so cheerful like even when he’s under terrifying mind control he still happily nods to random people on the street, and is perfectly jovial while he’s buying the gun to murder the guy.

* * *

That is a  _really_  gross sink. I like the transition between the vision and Sam though.

* * *

Dean just casually (well, anxiously :P) reminding Sam he’s “some kind of supernatural freak with a demonic connection” … This is actually 2 episodes in a row Dean’s been hesitant to go to the Roadhouse as well, weirdly enough. He was disinclined because he wanted to stay with Sam so just casually said something about the awkward social scene there, but now he’s outright scared of taking Sam there and explaining the visions in case someone decides to hunt Sam for it (you know, like how he spends basically the next 3 seasons in one sort of trouble or another with other hunters because of his mytharc stuff). 

Just something to think about with regards to the fact they stay kind of out of the loop of what hunters in general are up to - they do actually end up going to the Roadhouse in this episode, but perhaps they don’t sort of end up there as default  _because_ Dean is nervous of mixing with other hunters for too long because of Sam… Perhaps the same reason John kept them isolated from their own community. Which is very interesting since Dean already has a lot of moments from the first season where he intentionally or not parallels the way John would have enforced their lives.

* * *

Mmm populated Roadhouse.

And Jo earning a  _lot_  of money for playing a videogame. I mean that is the dream.

* * *

I like the camera work here where it sort of swoops around Dean and Jo and some of the patrons looking suspiciously as they come in. The Roadhouse  _is_  sort of hostile to them even though they like/rely on the main characters connected to it. It’s a weird thing where they have a legitimate fear of their own community but not the community leaders. Sort of like… TBH they probably  _should_  hang at the Roadhouse more and bond with random people and get the word spreading that John’s kids are OK, so people don’t just immediately believe it when it’s like “Oh hey did you hear Sam Winchester is the antichrist?”

* * *

This was in that mysterious phase where you couldn’t pretend you could reverse image search on the internet because people actually knew how Google worked in general (TV seriously lied to me about what the internet could do back in the late 90s/early 2000s :P) but like, before you could  _actually_  reverse image search.

* * *

No I am never forgiving the Animorphs TV show for that.

* * *

Hehe, Dean being rightfully terrified of Ellen killing him if he ran off with Jo.

The bar closes up pretty fast if Ash really did only take 15 minutes to find something for them to track. It goes from heaving and noisy to Jo clearing up empty glasses from empty tables and Dean sitting alone at the bar.

… Apparently Ash is less badass than advertised on his door.

* * *

I do feel kinda bad for Dean n Jo. If circumstances had been different they’d probably have hooked up in early season 2 but they don’t… Honestly think they could have been closer if they  _had_  but then worked their way to the platonic “more like a sister” kind of thing they ended up with, because they had sexual tension kind of getting in the way. Like, they’d need to clear that hurdle to see past it? I feel like they would have been closer without hooking up again or any teased romance exactly as it played out but perhaps they’d have seen each other more. :P I dunno, like, the writers said they wanted to focus on the little sister role but then they also barely included her for several seasons and then she came back to die basically… Properly handled, actually just getting it out their systems would have left them open to writing moar Jo and not having to deal with the sexual tension they set up because they would have affected an undeniable change in their interactions by doing that.

Hookups don’t HAVE to be to seal a relationship as a romance. :P IDK. I like Dean n Jo and I’m sad there’s not as much of it as there could have been, and it was the sexual tension they wrote into these early encounters that sort of put them off writing more of them because of course *rolls eyes* writing a dude and a lady who are attracted to each other means they HAVE to fall in love, have tons of sex, and their relationship derail the point of your show.

* * *

Thinking of derailing, this episode is like 30 seconds of Dean n Jo and half of everything I’ve written so far. :P

*cough*

* * *

(It’s just so CUTE how he hates her music taste openly but then the background music transitions to him singing along in the car with it stuck in his head. Like seriously, Dean vs the music on this show.  _It’s my favourite thing._

* * *

Another good transition from driving with the car headlights to the coffee but because of the transition from the vision back to current events, I kind of don’t trust anything to be real even though it’s just Sam n Dean doing the information gathering section of the episode…

Be careful with your cinematography tricks, guys.

* * *

This season is making me wonder if Sam’s hair is legit a little curly, or was, and  _if so_  when did he start straightening it?

I mean  _look at this_.

I’m really failing to draw the line to the bob cut he had in season 10.

* * *

Petition for Sam to stop washing his hair.

* * *

I am deeply amused by the heart eyes Dean is making just at the  _concept_  of Andy. If you can’t cop to him having a type you have to at least admit he wants to be BFFs with him. But let’s be real, Dean’s imagining them going to concerts together and getting high in the back of that van and making out and losing track of time for like days. Everyone needs an ill-advised terrible first boyfriend. :P

“You know how I’m always offering we stay in town a little longer whenever you have one of your boring girlfriends, Sammy? Lemme stay and hang out with this guy? Pls pls pls?”

Well okay he just says, “I’m sorry, I’m starting to like this guy,” mostly because they are  _kind of_  investigating him for murdery stuff.

* * *

Kinda sad he’ll immediately mind-control Dean and make off with the car but on the other hand if I remember correctly, Dean does have to concede this is a point in Andy’s favour that he’s got good taste? :P 

* * *

I literally can’t focus in this scene because of the way the light is catching Dean’s eyes this is a NIGHTMARE. STOP. Just… stop. *whimpers*

… I think Sam is upset because Andy might be killing people and then they discuss the nature of good and evil and rehash the stuff about Sam not being a monster because he’s psychic (and despite that being linked pretty directly to Azazel even without knowing all the details that he’s not inherently evil because of that) and him not being a murderer because he kills monsters. Dean emphasises how it’s not in Sam’s nature or, specifically, bones, and I’m thinking again of how they’re both Cain’s bloodline and how Sam does eventually get at least a little murdery. I think I’m chalking this one up to accidental irony for the line about bones but maybe not so much for Sam not being murdery in general if they really did have at least a vague idea of dark!Sam right from the start, since obviously this is all building up towards season 3′s dropped boy king Sam stuff, which purportedly only didn’t happen because they ran out of time to save Dean.

But:

* * *

Andy!

So we just assume that he was hooking up with that lady because he did some awesome favours for her with other people (maybe made a jerkwad ex back off or something??) instead of outright mind-controlling her to sleep with him?

I feel like this was a point of tension with the girl from the diner that he and/or his twin had a thing for (and his evil twin actually controls her) so let’s assume he has some basic decency around women. :P

* * *

Though he seems pretty dodgy… Would  _you_  accept a coffee cup from a stranger and start drinking it? I mean  _really would you drink a stranger’s coffee that they’d had their mouth on?_

* * *

“Can I have it?”

“Sure!”

*distant sound of someone dropping a glass in shock in the otherwise suddenly silent room*

* * *

Dean: 

:D 

…

:|

…

:C

* * *

You know, Sam sees Andy go by in the Impala  _already_  talking into his phone and  _then_  the doctor gets a call a second later, so it’s kind of impossible for Andy to have been phoning him - the fact he was already talking is  _sort of an alibi_. But nah, let’s be suspicious of him for a little while longer.

* * *

Hehehe “He can’t work his mojo just by twitching his nose”. 

I honestly wonder about when Dean ever manages to get anything done based on all the TV he watches.

* * *

Oh, Dean still doesn’t think Andy’s the bad guy. Aw. :D

* * *

*Dean continues admiring Andy’s style when they crack the van open*

* * *

He gets super thoughtful looking at the tiger on the wall. He’s probably contemplating how much he’d hate himself if he got one painted on Baby somewhere tbh. :P Or accidentally-deliberately let Andy borrow her again long enough for one to appear which he could then bitch about but secretly like and never get around to painting over…

* * *

Wasn’t it literally last episode where Sam said “are you high?” and Dean pulled a “bitch I might be?” face instead of denying it? This is also the season full of drug references and Dean… Honestly all sorts of stuff about them sneaking out that wasn’t in season 1.

* * *

… Dean littering the Impala right after getting her back. Dude. Even if Andy did paint a giant tiger on her he’d probably be looking after her better. Respect the car!

I’m interested in him saying he doesn’t want to be eating all the crappy road food - we know he likes cooking and is more of a foodie than it would seem (for a guy who lives primarily off shitty road food)… Considering I don’t think we’ve really had a complaint about it so far until now (but no really commentary either?) it’s interesting that now we’re getting these little challenges to what Dean is and isn’t - building up this more complex picture. Sure, he eats the crappy food and we always see him with it and in this life it is what he would eat all the time, but he doesn’t actually  _want_  to always be eating it and would prefer real food? A little peek and him not being so enamoured with the life as we’d have thought.

I guess this is sort of ongoing with the season 2 thing of their identities being a bit more in flux because now we’ve had their archetype season where we see mostly their surface stuff, now we’re being deliberately given more that challenges the archetype or explores deeper stuff behind it… So, more bi Dean subtext, more Dean the germphobe, Dean vs decent food, and so on and so forth.

* * *

Wait… so Sam challenges Dean about why he’s so convinced it’s not Andy, after Dean has been massively twinkly-eyed about him from the moment he heard about him… Sam says it’s basic maths Andy is doing it so perhaps Dean is just being contrary because A: as always they just need a contrary viewpoint, and B: this is about Sam fearing the worst of all the special kids and therefore C: Dean has to be given a reason to like him and defend him against Sam’s accusations (and therefore Sam’s fears about himself).

“How the hell would you know [that he doesn’t have it in him]? Why are you bending over backwards to defend him?” “Because you’re not right about this.”

Andy drops in to say hi before they can argue this too far, conveniently interrupting any discussion to see if this is more about Dean defending Sam from himself, or more Sam poking at why Dean has taken so easily to Andy (and we’re getting repeated examples this season of Dean taking to guys quickly - Ash, Gordon, now Andy…)

* * *

Ah then when Dean is blurting everything to Andy he does explain that he and Sam are worried about Sam being evil (and Andy being under suspicion for that). Once again, an overt reason for Dean to be actively defending Andy to Sam a moment before,  _but_  still not the full story since Dean was obviously taken with him and in a completely neutral situation probably would have had a hell of a time hanging out with him. :P

Plot always coming along and slapping another surface layer on top of Dean x his many crushes :P

* * *

Ugh, that immolation death is one of the more horrible of the show.

* * *

Heh, the timing of vision to action is all over the place in this episode. Like, Sam has the first vision with enough time to get to Ash, then drive all the way out here, and then have a go at stopping the events of the vision… Then he has this one while chatting to Andy and the fire engine goes past moments after he’s done seeing it?

It was preeetty consistent last time this was happening.

* * *

Oh, right they actually do point out that Sam was terrible at predicting it.

* * *

“But you live in a van. You could have everything you ever wanted.”

Something tells me a character who grew up in a car is not going to think that living in a van is the pinnacle of human ambition.

“I have everything I need.”

This is actually kinda echoing Swan Song’s philosophy about the Impala. 

I’m not getting choked up shut up.

* * *

“So you’re not a killer.” “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” “So there’s hope for both of us.”

Aww Saaaaam.

* * *

Andy’s really useful. AU where he came along with them and just made everything really easy.

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” 

*Dean watches over his shoulder, laughing to himself.* “Awesome.” 

(And earlier in the episode, he said, “He full on Obi-Wan’d me”… Oh man they’re like soulmates. :P)

* * *

… in an uncomplicated way which has nothing to do with the actual soulmate lore of this universe.

* * *

As the evil twin I feel very misrepresented by this episode. #notalleviltwins

* * *

“But he’s my family. Not yours. You can’t have him.”

I feel there is a commentary here about obsessing on your family to the exclusion of all others and driving out the elements which threaten to take away from the time you spend together.

If not in-show negativity, then definitely something certain elements of the fandom would do well to remember the show has highlighted as  _super creepy and weird_.

* * *

Honestly the way he tells them to say it’s okay and how the other victims emphasised how fine they were and cheerfully went along with it is one of the most disturbing aspects of how he was making them do it.

* * *

Heh, Andy’s very valid concerns about his brother’s methods of getting to know people.

* * *

Oh, I forgot that Yellow Eyes went to chill with some of his fave special children. I guess the ones that showed a clear sign of villainy early on were worth encouraging. Meanwhile he can’t get near Sam because of being a good guy hero type, so he has to mess with him from afar or only when the plot brings them together. :P

I suppose Yellow Eyes didn’t want these two brothers getting to hang out because if they bonded they wouldn’t fight to the death and it would make everything really awkward when the time came, but stopping the evil twin from meeting Andy (or, at least, telling him) made it this unattainable goal for the evil one (I literally can’t remember his name and they said it like 10 times sorry :P) so he starts trying to establish his relationship from afar, hence all the creepy weirdness. 

Not that this would be acceptable if they  _were_  aware of who each other were, but I suppose it’s how a creepy evil guy would think to assert his “right” to be with his brother without telling him? I dunno.

#notalleviltwins

I guess Yellow Eyes knew it would twist him to kill since he did tell him about his brother and basically use it to taunt him…

* * *

I hate that fake out which makes you think Dean might have shot himself. Bleh.

* * *

Aww poor Andy. :< Had to shoot his brother (aargh more sibling murder) and he’s all messed up about what happened to Tracey… :( *hugs him* He’s my precious cinnamon roll character of the week I think. :P

* * *

Pfft and then Sam n Dean just say they’ve got to go and leave him to cope, with a really anti-climactic “be good”… I mean they don’t exactly have the best training for handling this sort of situation, but it seems pretty underwhelming as a parting considering how relevant it is for them both?

Dean should have asked Andy to come along. Bah. :P

I mean they have moral concerns about the fact he shot his brother to stop him… Sam takes that as a black mark against him and suggests that because he did that it shows that they’re all capable of killing, while Dean sees the hero side of it. I suppose because he was fully ready to shoot the guy as well despite him being human (and another dark!Sam warning) and only didn’t because he got mind controlled.

“Yeah but he’s not a foaming at the mouth psycho.”

“Everyone’s capable of murder. Everyone.”

Oh and Sam does float the theory that Yellow Eyes is pushing them all to breaking point - I mean it was stated that Jess was killed just to get Sam back on the road and killing things, and he actually mentions that here. Interesting that he does also see it as human potential to be a killer, not necessarily a thing that comes with the powers. Like, yes, these people have powers, but it’s something inherent in all people that they might become killers and it’s just alarming that these kids all have powers  _as well_  to speed them on their way as they’re trained up to be awful. :P

* * *

Dean grumbles that being mind controlled doesn’t mean anything regarding what truths you drop, and you get a do-over to pretend it never happened.

Which, considering how  _much_  mind control there is in this show, and how one way or another altered states are used to show truths of characters - especially Dean - seems like something he would say. :P There’s  _already_  been times when words have been said that wouldn’t have otherwise got out of his emotionally repressed shell, and down here in season 2 it’s faaaar from the last time.

He’d probably be quite happy for every instance of this to have the “it doesn’t count” rule applied. :P

* * *

Wow that was good timing with the phonecall. The universe knows exactly when it’s a good time to drop a line, and influences the characters accordingly. :P

* * *

Ellen chasing Jo out instead of letting her hang around and overhear it all. *little subtle bits of Jo being treated like a kid in the background*

To go with the theme of John not letting Sam n Dean know everything and their ongoing issues of being disconnected and behind on the news all the time (well in this case they’re the ones with the important news).

Obviously not making a full Ellen/John parallel but it’s interesting. Jo seems much more connected being at the Roadhouse but she’s still a little adrift if Ellen wants her to be.

* * *

Aw Ash spilled the beans on their demon hunting.

Omg Dean telling Ellen to butt out. Brave, brave man. Stupid, but brave. :P

Sam’s the one who ends up telling Ellen everything while Dean rolls his eyes in horror at the secret being out.

Of course he’s terrified about other hunters finding out about this (and Ellen’s the hub) as established earlier in the episode, so if she took to it badly she could basically turn the entire hunting community against them with a word. 

But once they tell her she asks some sharp questions to evaluate the danger and doesn’t seem moments away from shooting Sam on the spot. Woo! They actually levelled up in trusting other people today! :3

Aw man, Ellen n Jo. Maaaaaan. *sighs* They’re massively involved down this end of the season. It’s pretty sad they kind of… stop being around. :( Right when they actually get to this point of having someone connected and dependable who can help them.

* * *

*still grumpy about the evil twin representation in this episode*


	6. 2x06

Or: this is the one with the scariest ghost on the show and I’d say fight me about it except I’m too busy hiding under a blanket.

Most of the violent ghosts (well they’ve all been violent so far?) have been killers in life as well? Like, this was just the obvious next step for what happens to someone who killed in life, once they’re dead? I guess the strength of their power as a ghost at this point correlates to their murdery-ness as a person. It gets a bit more nuanced later, but this is definitely the pinnacle of that idea.

* * *

Ugh ectoplasm is disgusting. *remembers Garth sampling it and shudders* Just… Who does that?

* * *

Wait, they’re leaving  _from_  the Roadhouse? Does Jo sneak onto this case by hiding in the trunk of the Impala all the way to the case?

If we don’t get any official comment on how she got there, so totally stowed away by hiding in the trunk.

…

Which is a pretty grim parallel to what happens to her towards the end of the episode.

 _Forget I said anything_.

* * *

Oh, look, Sam’s pink shirt! This one definitely survives for most of a decade. He’s wearing in 9x03 and I just went to check and the pattern seems to match up. 

* * *

> SAM  
> What’s in L.A.?
> 
> DEAN  
> Young girl’s been kidnapped by an evil cult.
> 
> SAM  
> Yeah? Girl got a name?
> 
> DEAN  
> Katie Holmes.
> 
> SAM  
> That’s funny. And for you, so bitchy.

*invokes the  _have you met Dean_  comment again*

* * *

And woah right into a Jo n Ellen fight that goes very well with all the John Winchester stuff I’ve been harping on from this season.

But first a shout out to my favourite characters of the entire show:

I hope they had a good vacation.

* * *

> ELLEN  
> I am your mother, I don’t have to be reasonable!
> 
> JO  
> You can’t keep me here!
> 
> ELLEN  
> Oh, don’t you bet on that, sweetie.
> 
> JO  
> What are you going to do, are you going to chain me up in the basement?
> 
> ELLEN  
> You know what, you’ve had worse ideas than that recently. Hey, you don’t wanna stay, don’t stay. Go back to school.
> 
> JO  
> I didn’t belong there! I was a freak with a knife collection.
> 
> ELLEN  
> Yeah, and getting yourself killed on some dusty back road, that’s where you belong?!

*has another pained laugh at “chained up in the basement” re: Jo and tight spaces for this episode*

Anyway:

Ellen knowing best for what keeps Jo safe because she’s her mother and said so. (Literally everything John did on screen in the present day parts of the show)

Jo rebelling specifically against the idea of being chained to the family for her own safety. (Saaam. This is where I stop shipping Dean x Jo and she immediately becomes more of the little sister type :P)

“Go back to school” (Sam’s impassioned angry speech about not going back to school in 2x02, in general also more paralleling Jo to Sam with the fact she tried the normal life at school)

“with a knife collection” (Hey remember that scary-ass knife Sam had in 1x01 lying around his apartment? :P)

Also everything about them being outsiders and feeling like freaks and that they don’t fit in, which both Sam n Dean have expressed over the last season and a bit.

Ellen trying to keep Jo cooped up is motivated entirely for her safety in Ellen’s eyes but we’re given another example of someone chafing against those restrictions, and the idea that people with the right knowledge and skills, once raised up like this in the hunter lifestyle (even, given her dad, having it in their blood as some sort of mystical “genetic” thing I dunno :P) they’re marked forever to not fit in and should be given the chance to prove themselves and use what they are for the greater good. Basically, Jo has become a weapon through her upbringing and now she is feeling like she’s not being allowed to do the one thing she thinks she’s good for.

This episode tests her, and she does well in it, and I assume this is where the story about Jo’s dad dying comes out, perhaps painting Ellen’s over-protective urges as either an overreaction or at least justified mothering based on her experience. I can’t remember yet. :P It’s the main emotional tension of the episode, anyways. I should… just keep watching and maybe come back to this later.

* * *

*lamp appreciation* In this case, over-head light so it’s in a different class from all the other lamps we routinely appreciate in this fandom.

* * *

“Joanna Beth, this family has lost enough. And I won’t lose you too. I just won’t.”

This is Ellen maintaining family stability with what’s left - all the deals (John and Dean’s) this season trade themselves out for the sake of someone else’s life so is not so much about maintaining the family as prioritising a member of it over themselves.  _Last_  season Dean was fighting desperately for this ideal of scraping together what was left, but since John’s deal fractured the family and moved them into this new level of grief, borrowed time, and terrible last words about having to kill Sam and further destroy what was left of the family, Dean’s playing a completely different game now.

It’s almost quaint. :/

* * *

Jo is so gorgeous here though.

* * *

There’s still an opening for her to be in the boot of the car though.

* * *

Yeah she got there suspiciously quickly behind them.

Is Jo the first person to call Dean “Dean-o”? 

I have literally read the “buy an apartment together” Destiel fan fic a dozen times; I have no idea how Jo has access to this information but I wonder if that was her ploy. :P

Buuut shortly before she showed up Dean said he couldn’t imagine her doing the case, and now she’s here he’s just worried about her and asking about Ellan blah blah over-protective mode enabled. I think having Jo in the line of danger is what tips Dean over and puts any chance of them together in the past… I saw someone commenting on their rewatch of Route 666 how he treated Cassie when she was in danger combined with her parting words to him suggesting it was him telling her what to do and going way over protective which made her think it wouldn’t work out long term. You can see here as well as Jo grabs Dean as her boyfriend as part of her cover Dean is uncomfortable by her being there and asserting herself that way… Using specifically the idea of them in a relationship as the lie to cover their presence and making it an awkward moment, surrounded by Dean being convinced she shouldn’t be here, is basically hammering nails in the coffin on them as a romantic relationship faster than I can keep up with. :P

* * *

Obviously… for the viewer at home who is not interested in whatever their relationship would be if they got together while working together so ~fantastically~. Dean tries to argue he’s sending her back, but Jo argues him into staying when actually put to the test with the phonecall from Ellen.

BTW, at this point there’s still nothing to suggest Jo didn’t get there by hiding in the back of the car.

* * *

“I know what I’m doing.” “I think the jury’s still out on that one… Will you put the knife down.”

(And then Dean says they’re grouped up for their teambuilding exercise and generally insists he’s not letting her out of his sight.)

Trying not to gender this any more now they’re officially a terrible couple, obviously this is a ton of Dean acting like John. He’s always allowed Sam to be totally okay to look after himself despite being younger and even, as I noted in 1x01, out of the life for a while, so there  _could_  have been a subplot about Dean being over-protective and dubious of Sam’s ability to hunt. But Sam drops right back into it and while Dean is obviously protective of him in general it’s not a point of tension with regards to the everyday physical dangers of the job.

Jo being possibly younger (tbh I have no idea how old Alona Tal was at this point or how old Jo was supposed to be except that clearly she was at  _least_  18 or they’d have shut down Dean hitting on her - and butterflydm pointed out we get so many early/mid 20s actresses playing teenagers, the actual idea of what young adults look like on TV is really skewed :P) and definitely in a position where she’s genuinely less experienced (this seems to be her first real hunt) and has a mother desperately looking out for her in the opening scenes of the episode, making someone’s concern for her being alive or dead a very important part of this story, puts her in this role of needing to be protected, that, at least from Dean, means he drops into the sort of role of being the strict parent in this relationship way more than he ever did with Sam on screen.

Also just to drive home the John parallels he questions her ability to have done all the research and basically acts like his say so if she’s competent or not is the most important thing, like, for example, in 1x20 John catches up with the boys and makes a big deal out of how well they covered their tracks and begrudgingly admits they did okay before getting onto any niceties.

* * *

Jo goes on to refer to Dean keeping an eye on her like that as “riding her so close” and says he should at least buy her dinner. Could probably say the spark’s dead on both sides then? :P They’re stuck in the awkward position of being attracted to each other but now they actually know each other they realise wow the emotional side of this was a bad idea. :P

She calls him out on his chauvinism over this but to be fair to Dean, like I said, all the crap about them aside, he is genuinely more worried about her because she’s a newbie and has family that cares about her than because specifically he thinks she’s weak or can’t do it for rubbish reasons.

They just have the other stuff about all their earlier flirting on the side making it complicated.

> DEAN  
> What you do have is a bunch of half-baked romantic that some barflies put in your head.
> 
> JO  
> Now you sound like my mother.
> 
> DEAN  
> Jo, you’ve got options. No one in their right mind chooses this life. My dad started me in this when I was so young… I wish I could do something else.
> 
> JO  
> You love the job.
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah, but I’m a little twisted.
> 
> JO  
> You don’t think I’m a little twisted too?
> 
> DEAN  
> Jo, you’ve got a mother that worries about you. Who wants something more for you. Those are good things. You don’t throw things like that away. Might be hard to find later.

Filed under: “Aaaaaaaargh”

Dean saying he’d do another job if he hadn’t been raised that way (something we know he barely ever allowed himself to think about), and seeing in Jo someone who has the chance to not do that. He also sees the ideal of hunting which he clung to last season (being the guy advocating all the time for purposeful saving people over the revenge arc until it turned into specifically saving his family over the revenge arc) as some romantic notion now. He gets that it’s talked up, which, he’s probably done a fair bit of the talking up… Every episode still starts with the ultimate example: “Saving people, hunting things!” over and over and over and over.

(Also Dean sounds like Ellen who sounds like John…)

Aaand his words on this all come from the place of grief he’s been in all season since John died. He’s thinking about this in reverse: that line almost doesn’t make sense as it’s Jo in danger here not Ellen but he’s framing it about her throwing away Ellen and finding it hard to recover that. Perhaps taking the example of Sam’s fight with John and assuming in general parents just die messy sooner or later and so you should stay on good terms with them while you have them. But it also sounds an awful of a lot like projecting his own grief about John onto what Jo can expect, given the weird way around it is (not telling her about how Ellen would mourn her).

* * *

Oh lordy I forgot about the horrible creepy fingers just reaching for Jo right there while they’re investigating in the corridor in a supposedly more safe environment since it’s not night and Dean’s right there.

* * *

Wow I just mis-typed “John” there. Woops.

* * *

I hate that camerawork where Dean sticks his hand in the grate and it’s almost like the camera is backing off from his hand.

* * *

… More gross where he finds the chunk of hair.

* * *

How many attractive blonde women can live in one apartment??

* * *

Maybe the creepy landlord guy cultivates his tenants carefully and there’s a reputation for that sort of thing, hence the quality of junk mail they get:

Like, “Oh yeah, that building is full of attractive young women earning a certain amount of money: just go stick a flyer in all their letter boxes!”

* * *

(Okay the letter did seem to be addressed to her but even so :P)

* * *

… that looks wildly uncomfortable.

* * *

I think Dean just wanted to show off he had a bigger knife tbh.

* * *

Well no it was probably more of him trying to protect her and prime her for the job and subtly commenting that because she had a small knife she wasn’t as well protected as she should be with a bigger knife… She shows him it’s her dad’s knife and there’s more to it than just her having it for protection or stabbing people (well, uh, saving people hunting things :P) but she’s got the knife because she’s in the family business… Which he already knew but doesn’t understand until he has to play out the metaphor. :P

* * *

Oh yay John stories. 

* * *

> DEAN  
> I was six or seven, and uh, he took me shooting for the first time. You know, balls on a fence, that kind of thing. I bulls-eyed every one of ‘em. He gave me this smile, like… I don’t know.
> 
> JO  
> He must have been proud.

Dean gives that awful sad laugh and just changes the discussion to Jo’s dad without commenting. We should take it as a given since John said he was proud of Dean in 2x01 if we’re just skimming over the surface of the text, but then again, all the other times Dean did something in front of John, John didn’t commend him for it, and him actually saying it out loud was met with just as much uncertainty as the time Azazel said it and Dean just  _knew_. Something Wicked was probably the best example of their relationship: John asked Dean to do a thing, he got it done, and no words were exchanged on the subject. John was  _conspicuously_  absent from the present day stuff, not least because they actually paid JDM to be in the episode for the flashbacks so that wasn’t a barrier to him dropping a line to commend Dean on getting the hunt done.

So when Jo says the word “proud” it does sort of bring up the whole narrative of how Dean and John related as we saw when John was alive.

Got to love where Dean’s mind goes when you challenge him to think the first thing that comes into his head about John and his parenting, and it’s John priming him for being a hunter, and Dean doing something super grim like not just learning to shoot as a 6 year old, but already being extremely proficient at shooting as a 6 year old… And he probably  _did_  look to John for approval, but there’s an empty hole in this narrative where the pride (for being a well-trained soldier fit for purpose at this young age) would have been  _openly_  expressed.

Pfft.

* * *

Jo compares her dad to Steve McQueen and mentions his leather jacket. Hm. >.>

Dean seems to like the idea of him anyway, for some reason. :P

* * *

Dean is  _offensively_  freckled in this scene.

Make him stop. :/

* * *

> JO  
> And we were… we were a family. You wanna know why I want to do the job? For him. It’s my way of being close to him. Now tell me what’s wrong with that.
> 
> DEAN  
> Nothing.

*quiet sobbing*

So much stuff about family and legacy and why they do what they do all wrapped up in a couple of lines. 

(I’ve got no problem with Dean hunting for the idealised idea of a hunter that John never actually seemed to display on screen but fits in Dean’s definition of saving people hunting things… I do feel like John probably was a good hunter for saving people and stuff but never when it was plot relevant and that’s not the character we were supposed to see based on how literally everything that he ever did on screen or has been said about him interestingly aside from a few random lines lauding him without context made him not look like this… But it’s still a good ideal for Dean to have and live up to. Just… It comes with a buttload of trauma and toxic crap as well which is what we’ve never got so far as ditching…)

* * *

Hey, it’s Jo who spots that the prison was next to it. Unlike with 1x13 where Cassie wasn’t allowed to meaningfully contribute to the information in the case, Jo has provided pretty much everything so far, and Sam n Dean are here for the grunt work. However the workload balances out (and she ends up captured by the ghost), Jo has a real chance to contribute all the way through.

* * *

“That’s right, I will. With  _pliars_.”

Ah Jo. :3

* * *

Sam and his weird serial killer knowledge. 

* * *

*Sam dorkily grins with glee over this* He’s waaay too excited.

* * *

Oh, Dean smelled and recognised (kinda) chloroform. Adding to later season stuff like how Sam’s serial killer knowledge showed up again in 10x14, I know we talk a lot about that line about Dean knowing what roofies look like in 9x13; here we have him at least partially aware of what chloroform smells like. I suppose you could make a case that he’s studied how  _not_  to get drugged and kidnapped (perhaps as part of being a great hunter), but the fact that he was pretty vague about the smell at the time suggests perhaps just incidental knowledge of it. He’s been  _around_  chloroform but not actively taught himself to recognise it?

Which tbh just makes me wonder if he’s been chloroformed as well as potentially roofied in his past. :P I don’t think anything’s abducted them at this point with anything more nuanced than a knock around the head?

* * *

I suppose they are actually renting the place so it’s okay they smashed a hole in the wall? I mean they’re SO not getting their deposit back but…

* * *

No okay they’re just smashing random holes in the wall all over the place.

* * *

Sam is spending a  _lot_  of time not here in this episode. :P

He’s just having fun with his nerdy serial killer case.

He comes up with the solution about the sewers and before he can even be done nerdily explaining it Dean’s just like “let’s go,” and walks out on Sam’s nerdy fun.

Poor Sam.

* * *

Poor Jo :(

* * *

She’s not too great at saving damsels in distress. :(

* * *

It’s totally not conspicuous that Sam n Dean are walking along a city street with a shovel and a metal detector.

* * *

And then they just conveniently go to an empty lot where they can dig. If they knew that was roughly where they needed to go and had the shovel for it, why did they start using the metal detector out on the street where it was useless and they couldn’t dig?

* * *

*gratuitous cockroaches*

* * *

I can’t believe Jo was hammering on the metal door with her  _knee_. Wow.

There’s no  point crippling yourself like that.

* * *

*continues shuddering about everything*

But yay Jo stabbing him with her dad’s knife. :3

* * *

Dean gets a lot less fussed about crawling around in a sewer when there’s someone to save than he does about touching bits of a dead person while wearing rubber gloves.

A man of many intricate levels.

* * *

What if one those cages had the ghost of a dead girl in it? And they sprung it and it attacked them? :P

* * *

*trying to make light of the disgusting skeletons because  _wow_  this episode*

* * *

Jo accepts her role as bait easily… I don’t think Dean told her that Ellen knows and is coming - it would distract her, he possibly thinks? (I dunno I think it would make her more determined to do things right to prove a point :P).

I love the shot of her in isolation. We’ve seen her break down and cry, we’ve seen her fight back. She had to be rescued, but they give her a chance to reclaim strength and agency and it’s less by what is said and more this looong shot of her sitting there shivering and terrified but willingly being bait (which, again, was her idea and purpose in coming here).

* * *

I guess the ghosts don’t really understand the concept of bait.

* * *

They do understand being trapped though.

* * *

Yeeeah more Dean stealing heavy machinery.

* * *

I’m still dubious about the actual practicalities of the cement solution.

Like okay they just filled it with cement. Did you see how far they crawled before they got to his layer? Wouldn’t it make more sense to brick him in and leave a layer of salt between the bricks or something?

… It did look cool though.

Let’s not over-think it :P This is a thing not meant to be thunk.

* * *

Looove that awkward car trip home with Ellen.

Always fun roadtripping with the parents.

* * *

Aaand there we have the big John was a sucky hunter parallel to Dean regarding Ellen’s fears. Not sure how much of this was planned, but she was definitely less wary about Dean before he was dragging Jo out on hunts (uh, well, Jo inflicting herself on Dean in hunts but Ellen’s POV here :P)

I don’t know why Jo gets angry specifically with Dean, but I suppose this legacy thing is  _very_  strong in this show: people are literally their parents, or condemned to do something because of their bloodline or whatever… Even on this small level, Ellen’s fear of “like father like son” bubbles over so much that Jo immediately fears that Dean would have got her killed in just the same way… There he is wearing the leather jacket and standing by the car basically being John (after all his being like John through the episode) and so she acts angrily to him…

I never really got that moment until I stopped to think about it in light off all these themes tbh. :P I always just thought they wrote Jo being irrationally angry with Dean for ~women are hysterical~ reasons, so this makes me like it a lot more…

* * *

Dean should be like “it’s no biggie, John used us for bait all the time.” I find it quite grim that we saw that with Sam in Something Wicked and one instance of John using Dean as bait in Dean Man’s Blood, so, for someone with like 3 appearances…

* * *

And then the point that John kept away from Ellen all that time because of getting her husband killed (I’m now certain she gave him a bad egg label if anyone tried working with him as well, warning anyone off actually doing it like she did with Gordon). His exclusion from hunter community is not necessarily a choice so much as the unfortunate result of his actions… He never tried mending bridges, and Ellen even sent him that call offering to help (which he never followed up on), but yeah. Everyone they met so far fell out with John or had very good reason to avoid him.

Jo storming off on Dean at the end is like a mirror of that happening in the next generation: entrenching the idea into a sort of family feud, like “Harvelles and Winchesters don’t mix and that’s that.”

* * *

Welp, that was a gloomy ending. :(

*feels terrible imagining Ellen’s flight with her life flashing before her eyes about Jo all the way there that took place off-screen*


	7. 2x07

You could make a strong argument that this entire episode is an elaborate AU of a flight of fancy from Sam n Dean sat around reading the newspaper, doing the word puzzles in the back, and making fun of the personal ads. 

Prove me wrong.

* * *

I looove the opening montage for this episode summarising their history of actual illegal crime and aliases and supposed professions.

* * *

Also the cold open with them catching Sam and interviewing Dean is really nicely built up.

* * *

Honestly can’t remember if I like this episode because of friends or because it’s genuinely one of the better episodes, but it really stands out in my memory of that first big marathon I did in good company. I’m assuming my snarky awesome friends were very loud about various happenings here, because I can recall this episode really easily.

I have massive season 2 nostalgia I don’t even know. Going through it is making me realise how much I specifically associate it with that marathon. Like, I watched 1 & 3 with the same people but this is the one which is sort of  _ours_.

* * *

I like how Sam’s honestly annoyed and disbelieving that Dean would be held for murder. Like maybe he’s just being lawyer-y but they’ve probably got to accept that along the way s _omehow_ they’re going to get attached to a weird death just by always hangin’ out with dead things.

For example: just from 2x03 we know vampires not properly disposed of will end up treated exactly like human victims.

* * *

Must be pretty disturbing to have her recite all these what-the-authorities-would-know facts back at him. I guess the point Sam realises there’s an actual ongoing investigation gathering all these details up rather than any surface level information.

* * *

I don’t think he’s handcuffed to anything? He’s just walking around in the room? They’re taking it on pretty good faith he’s not a violent/dangerous criminal. I suppose because they have no charges against him and if I remember correctly they think he’s a sort of hapless victim to Dean’s crimes as well, just dragged along?

* * *

“After [Jess] died you fell off the grid. Left behind everything.”

Well, except for his weird knife collection.

Does that mean the easel and art stuff in the apartment  _could_  have potentially been his? I saw an argument in the other direction on my dash this morning suggesting Sam was a little more arty than we give him credit for.

But this picture is  _just so funny_.

* * *

I love how Sam can go in a few seconds from 

> _Don’t you dare talk about how Jess was fridged for my man pain_

to 

> _Gee I love twine!_

Snarky Sam is the best thing. I am 100% behind the theory that Soulless!Sam was just opening the floodgates to his inner voice and we only get very rare peeks into it normally.

This was one and we were blessed.

* * *

Did… Sam… just… slam his actual broken hand down on the table?

I am getting the sense there’s an actual war going on between Sam n Jared.

Jared: *breaks hand*  
Sam: *slams hand on table*  
Jared: *falls in love with Gen and marries her so as the rumours go the show avoided Sam x Ruby as a good thing*  
Sam: *sleeps with Gen in the French Mistake*  
Jared: *violently dislocates his shoulder*

…

Sam: *has the season 10 hair*

* * *

So they exhumed the shifter!Dean corpse, right? If it stayed structurally sound in death, wouldn’t that make  _all sorts_  of awkward problems? But they could also be like “Well that guy’s clearly Dean and did all the murders because you had him at the scene,” and then I dunno Dean can be his own twin brother who was never on the record somehow but clearly  _has_  to exist because who else is the corpse?

I dunno, I’m tired. 

Probably the shifter I dunno jellified or something like the gunk it leaves behind when changing and lost the surface layer or something gross. Knowing how these things go. :P

* * *

I am always amused by Sam’s heart-felt discussion of how they knew that victim cutting immediately to Dean announcing his name and Sam being like “Who’s that?”

* * *

There’s something up with coffee here. Sam made a thing about drinking the one she brought him, and now he’s walking into shot carrying two coffees for him and Dean in the flashback.

*appreciates the view*

Remember what I said about them and newspapers? 

* * *

I think this is a Sam-centric episode which doesn’t use Dean like a helpful dunce (that scene where he’s pulling faces aside) but actually has them on a pretty equal level showing them getting to the same conclusions and working together as a team while not in the same room, just that it’s Sam who carries the emotional arc and does more of the action?

* * *

Are all the flashbacks in this episode great contradictory cuts like saying how they went to be there for the widow as a close friend and then cuts to them faking being insurance people. 

I love writing those horrible fake out cuts between scenes in my own writing.

“It was wrong to enter a crime scene, but she gave us the key!” *on screen visual of Dean picking the lock*

Yeah this is my jam.

* * *

It always bugs me how the ghost is called Dana Shulps for a disproportionate amount of the episode, but I suppose that’s just part of all the misdirects going on.

* * *

I like how Sam got caught because Dean had a motel matchbook on him. I mean  _yeah_  he probably used the matchbooks a lot in the line of work but it also fits right into my headcanon of him stealing everything from motels all the time anyway. :P

* * *

“Someone was in the house!” *cuts to a very much not someone but some _thing_  murdering the next victim*

* * *

I can’t remember what her relevance was to this mystery. I always remember some of the other characters having a much more pressing, dramatic reason to be killed by not-Dana? It’s always made me wonder about the ghosts always going for the most relevant one last for dramatic tension. But then I suppose maybe the ghost had to build up power? Like the most dramatic death takes the most energy? I dunno. :P

* * *

Also how did not-Dana haunt all these people in really diverse locations? I can’t remember what she was bound to.

* * *

Dean, don’t touch the dead body. 

…

Told you that was a bad idea.

* * *

“Sam’s story matches his down to the last detail” - I suppose they have a template arrangement for what to say if they’re caught, but aside from 1x01 and almost in Skin they’ve never been caught? I wonder if Skin shocked them into realising they needed a template answer for being caught, or if this was something John drilled into them… Maybe not, since they were younger and maybe not hunting with him in the same way? I guess they only really became each other’s alibis while on the road together.

* * *

Here’s the next section of Sam n Dean are bored and doing puzzles in the newspaper as they play around with the anagram.

* * *

I am extremely taken with Jared’s As. They’re like most of the way to being the star A in the title card.

I know they let Jensen write a load of notes in season 10 but I wouldn’t trust him to write the title card:

* * *

I am amused again at Dean just casually talking about anagrams with his lawyer - not that he intends to stick around to have justice served on him, but it’s like the cop in 2x03 where he just casually asked him about Satanists.

* * *

Genuinely not sure he knows  _how_  to behave in normal society. It’s a miracle they get away with most of their interactions with the general public.

* * *

TBH if you didn’t know about the ghost stuff and an ancient computer started spitting a danashulps error at you you’d be much more likely to think something was broken in the computer than a ghost was haunting you. Not-Dana’s methods are flawed.

* * *

Hmmmmm. Who was being compared to McQueen just last episode? Well, indirectly :P 

* * *

(I think it’s the guy signing himself off as McQueen)

* * *

Which relies on them knowing the same pop culture stuff, which is also highlighted by them both calling the lawyer Matlock… Honestly I don’t think they ever think with the same brain quite so consistently in any other episode. :P I know, I know, this is just highlighting it. I think it’s nice they have this case here in particular where they’re so completely in agreement. They weren’t fighting last episode but they had a rough time of it after John’s death for several episodes, so even if Dean is still haunted by all that, it’s the best episode for showing them actually falling back into their groove (last episode was so intensely Dean n Jo, Sam was pretty much a backseat passenger to the episode, so doesn’t really count. I swear if they hadn’t written in the conversation in the opening minute between them joking around they wouldn’t have interacted directly, alone, for the whole episode :P) Now they’re not interacting but we’re being given a sign that despite all the drama they’ve been going through they’re still very much a team and they know it. Nothing like being united by external forces.

* * *

Oh maaan Dean going  _on the record_  about vengeful spirits (also tick off the bit where Dean muses on what he’d write for his personal ad in the newspaper :P). This makes asking about Satanists mutilating cattle small fry.

I feel like he’s got a sense of cockiness about knowing ghosts exists when other people don’t, like he’s better for knowing it? (I know it’s old but he was like that in Wendigo gloating about what he hunts compared to the normal old bear hunter with them.) I know in serious emotional moments he always values people living safe happy normal lives, but being like this about his job, to him, is all part of that hunter mythos idea he’s got which was quietly in the background of season 1 but I’m pretty sure I’ve commented on a couple of times already this season.

… It’s a thankless job and no one would believe him anyway, so he might as well be proud of it where he can. I dunno. :P

* * *

Dean references the Shining twice in one episode - “All work and no play” “You remember Redrum”

Also didn’t he reference Pet Semetary last episode? 

I just really love the idea of Dean as a massive Stephen King fan and I don’t think we talk about this enough. :P I bet he’s read all the books he can get his hands on and that’s probably also where his 3 hours of sleep thing came from. 

… tell me Dean doesn’t get super creeped out by the scary bits in horror movies and books. Look me in the eye and say he doesn’t fall for it every time against all his training and better judgement. :P

* * *

You can tell Linda Blair’s character is OK because she gets the Great Escape reference and her loser murdery boyfriend doesn’t get it. Since it was meant to be a moment of extreme telepathy between Sam n Dean it puts her right on their level.

* * *

Just musing on the fact Sam was paired with a female character for this episode and Dean with the dude - especially after the dramatic shoving him around/getting in his face the cop did… I mean it’s not like Linda Blair was a love interest or anything, but it’s just part of that extremely long ongoing pattern where they’re singled out and paired like that. Of course Dean’s side pretty much all happened off-screen: we saw Sam telling the story and then were told it was point by point the same one Dean told to the guy on the other side of the building. I dunno, random musing about that being left out but intentionally for storytelling purposes.

* * *

Okay NOW the Dana Shulps writing is scary. And the Not-Dana ghost is  _truly_  disturbing.

* * *

I’m convinced Dean was asleep here, snatching a few seconds here and there. He’s done all he can - solved the meaning of the anagram, bought Sam the time to escape… Nothing left to do but power down for a little bit. :3

* * *

Aw, he says he was tired and it was a long day. *gets him a mug of cocoa and a blanket*

* * *

Okay he was being a snarky lil shit but I respect him being that and  _also_  needing cocoa and a blanket.

* * *

He’s so snarky even when she’s reaching out for help. 

Okay, he gets serious when he sees the bruises.

* * *

Aah and Dean says how to find Sam with more secret pre-arranged codes. Yeah, we’re learning a  _lot_  about how they operate together today. :3

* * *

I’m guessing since it’s a pre-arranged pattern they’re not allowed to be picky about the motel based on taste…

  


(Hello sunburst clock!)

* * *

Heh Sam shows her all the illegally obtained crime scene photos he’s turned up and even though she’s right onboard with the ghost thing now she immediately gets offended about him breaking the law. 

Sorry, Linda Blair, this is what they do. :P

(I should really find out her name - I swear I was trying to catch it in her first interview with Sam but I either missed it or it didn’t come up? Well it’s the one time I know the actor already so :P)

* * *

Honestly I think there was something in that coffee Sam brought Dean in the earliest flashback. He’s so bouncy and sassy this episode. I think Jared was having a LOT of fun acting across from Linda Blair or something because he’s  _sparkling_.

* * *

I forgive the show a lot of things but then there’s stuff like Charlie, or this:

  


>.>

* * *

NO IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE SAM.

WE ARE IN A MYSTERY SPOT WHERE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS DON’T APPLY.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN THOSE.

* * *

Omg Sam’s smashing the brick wall open with his ELBOW. Dude. Are people just made of tougher stuff than me? I know I’m frail and puny but even so… Jo was kneeing a metal door last episode.

* * *

Wait did they not burn Claire (the ghost)’s bones? I swear we haven’t seen the last of her this episode even though she was only trying to help, but Sam n Linda Blair just  _left_  her in that abandoned warehouse. Wow, guys. Real respectful to the dead. :P

I know I know there’s an ongoing crisis. But still, she had served her purpose in bringing the truth to light…

* * *

Why DID her crooked partner decide to kill Dean? Like, I know they didn’t get on… Did he just decide since he was already really murdery that annoying criminals should be executed on the side of the road?

…

He wants to pin it on Dean? But, like, the heroin vanished a year ago? And had to be an inside job? 

Or is he just blaming the murders on Dean and hoping the heroin never gets connected to the whole thing thanks to his careful murdering?

* * *

Heh, nice shot in the leg. :3

* * *

That “I’m the last person to know there’s a ghost behind me” expression. 

* * *

Oooh Claire still just acted as a death omen and Linda Blair shot the guy. This is like in The Benders where Kathleen shot the gross cannibal daddy for revenge… The show sure likes killing at least  _someone_  in episodes like these, and can’t have the boys killing technically regular humans because that’s a moral event horizon they haven’t crossed  _yet_ , and so these badass lady characters end up shooting a lot of people probably just because of the stories that can and can’t be told.

There’s maybe another angle to it but that’s all I see when a pattern like this shows up. :P

* * *

“The death omen, Claire, what happens to her now?” “It should be over. She should be at rest.”

WE COULD BE A LOT MORE SURE OF THAT IF YOU BURNED THE BONES.

* * *

Wow that ending trailed out. Like, okay, let’s just risk my job and everything by being one cop alone with another dead cop and 2 escaped prisoners and just my word… Ah well we’re out of time let’s have Sam n Dean wander off making fourth wall breaking jokes about the Exorcist. :P

She was almost certainly fired and I feel terrible for her.

Also I swear her name never came up properly. 

* * *

Ah well. 


	8. 2x08

This episode is to Crowley as Houses of the Holy is to Cas, I guess?

It’s probably been long enough that the victims in this episode are the random demon mooks we see in later seasons tbh.

* * *

I do like the nice peaceful guitar playing in the opening. Could have had like 10 more minutes of that tbh.

Shame about the hellhounds.

* * *

Why does he  _leave_  though? I mean even if he knew that the hellhounds were coming for him and it wasn’t just random scary dogs, staying inside with people would  _seem_  like the most sensible thing?

Well he makes it home to lock himself in, but even so… 

I guess if he knew it was hellhounds he was trying to get away from other people to keep them safe as well?

Eh, logic.

* * *

I like Dean’s mugshot.

Probably the worst picture of Jensen I’ve ever seen.

They get points for listing him as 6″1 but lose points for “brown” instead of “green” for his eyes. Like, did the person doing the profile end up being the only person in the universe not to get dreamily lost in his eyes? I don’t get it.

* * *

*gets utterly, utterly distracted watching Dean eat fries*

I mean look at him. He’s acting all cheerful on the surface because he can make light of being a wanted criminal (after all it’s so much  _less_  awful on his life than the burden he’s carrying since John’s death) and wind up Sam like everything’s normal, and he’s got food, he’s still drinking soft drinks like  _who is this man_. 

* * *

Apparently the architect guy who died actually saw it and said it was a black dog? I don’t know if they decided hellhounds were going to be invisible while working out the practicalities of shooting and that line slipped by because of context or if the guy saw the shadow and  _assumed_  or if it was just a way to make us think we were dealing with regular black dogs until the reveal. Cold open guy died apparently of like a heart attack or something rather than being shredded in the way we’re more familiar with… (and I’m pretty sure we  _see_  a victim get clawed at in this very episode?) My entire knowledge of black dogs was based around the stuff about the Grim in the Prisoner of Azkaban so I got totally played by this episode’s opening the first time through assuming people saw the dog and dropped dead. Especially since literally the  _last episode_  had an actual ghost serving as a death omen.

I suppose the musician just got so freaked out he had a heart attack, and hey, he was dead and signed over to Hell so the job was done, if disappointing for the hellhounds in question. :P

* * *

Aw Dean making jokes about Hellhounds humping your leg. 

Dean shh. Deeean.

*clutches heart*

* * *

Aw, they’re playing journalists again. They find someone conveniently really bitter, who wants to rant angrily about very plot relevant stuff and even hits the “geniuses die young” idea, subtly implying some extremely famous talented people only got where they did because of demon deals.

* * *

Dean proudly announcing that he successfully flirted with a girl to get the information they needed. *pats him on the head* Your taste in suits is still really bad this far down in the show.

* * *

Wow but this motel.

  
  
  


Daaamn.

* * *

I love the directing in this bit too. All the dramatic shifts and angles and the zoom on the door knob in time with the knocking. Okay the last one was a bit overblown but I laughed and enjoyed it all the same.

* * *

Our first crossroads! I feel like they aren’t appreciating enough just how much  _time_  they’ll spend at crossroads. Like, almost as often as they make a phone call some seasons.

They probably have a map with all the best dirt path crossroads in a local area.

Crowley probably has a counter map with big red Xs on the crossroads his lot can’t answer any more.

* * *

The flowers there probably were actually intentionally planted there like they were wondering about. Demon gardeners go around seeding likely crossroads on dirt paths with the proper spell ingredients to make sure no one has any problem summoning them.

TBH, probably Crowley when he has a weekend off.

Headcanon accepted.

* * *

Sam says the exact same line “demonic pitbulls” as Dean said about the daevas in Shadow… I feel they really liked the phrasing and sneakily recycled it. I think this one soundbite gets trotted out most episodes with a hellhound?

* * *

Also usually a clip of Dean getting shredded by them post season 3 just for funsies.

* * *

Like the poor doctor. Byeee. :(

* * *

Ooh, flashback. They like the “here’s how it really happened” that follows a reveal of a big plot twist.

* * *

The important moment. Do we find out  _here_  only 8 episodes into the season that deals are sealed with kisses? Because… I left an open question about John and Azazel…

Ahh, yep, kisses seal the deal. Good to know. The opening montage also made a point of showing that Azazel and John made a deal. This has GOT to be soon enough after that they knew what they were doing.

* * *

Dean’s  _horror_  at Sam not knowing music. Specifically, the fact Dean really digs music which references the occult. Like he’s made a study of it. :D

I do really like how much horror and stuff Dean is aware of in popular culture. Like, even though he knows better in many cases, he still eats up this stuff.

I just.

* * *

“Someone goes over Niagara in a barrel, are you going to jump in and try to save them?”

After actually agreeing to help the people affected, Dean wanders off all flippantly and Sam is left standing there really pensively.

I do think it’s interesting there’s a split in their instinctive morality on this. Sam sees people about to be harmed by evil who should be saved, no matter how they got there, Dean sees it as a self-made problem, to which you’re a spectator. Like how this scene is cut with the doctor dying and Johnson making his historic deal: we’re seeing the natural order of demon deals playing out as they stand there discussing it, just a backdrop to the world they live in of which they have just become aware. It’s very interesting given season 3, especially since the original plan was for Sam to  _save_  Dean and so they’re being set up with their viewpoints to match that, assuming the plan stretched that far, and the weight should have been with Sam saying they should be saved but comes down instead on Dean saying they should go over in a barrel.

Can’t remember what happens to the original guy in this that they actually try saving, but he was the one who made the deal to save a sick loved one, so the Dean parallel. 

… I should keep watching. I got pretty far before I paused to start writing essays this time! :P

* * *

I wonder if Dean’s reluctance to help stems from his well-founded suspicions about John’s deal.

* * *

The goofer dust guy (George) is cool and all with his art and hoodoo know-how and his benign deal but he WAS the one who summoned the demon and therefore the reason everyone else is dying… If they’re committing to saving these people then he is sort of problematic…

*likes him anyway*

* * *

Anyone who sells their soul for art is pretty cool. :P

* * *

Ooh this is where the “We know a little about a lot of things, just enough to make us dangerous” line comes from.

* * *

“Listen, I get that you boys want to help. But sometimes a person makes their bed, they’ve just got to lie down in it. I’m the one called that demon in the first place.”

I guess another example of someone accepting why they did their deal and paying up, as per Dean later.

* * *

Aww he’s sad about the people who did deals as well. :( He’s got genuine remorse about it. *is cool with liking him still* :P

* * *

Sam: “You don’t really want to die.” George: “I don’t? I’m tired.”

Wow, those lines seem really relevant for later. :P Especially with Sam arguing with someone who’s made their peace with what they did, trying to save them when they themselves are OK with it because they got what they wanted/figure it’s probably what they deserve with what’s coming for them.

* * *

Okay, this guy (uh, Evan?) definitely seems to know what’s going to happen to him. Perhaps he actually talked with the demon properly before making his deal.

He’s definitely drinking in his wife before she goes all weird on him.

* * *

Sam: defender of doors!

I’m laughing about Dean being like “come on, we’re not demons!”

… We’ve all been demons.

* * *

I think the way Dean is making fun of Evan sort of sets up that Evan is meant to be sympathetic. Argh awkward jerk Dean.

* * *

Oooh man, here comes Dean’s issues with John.

> DEAN  
> You sure about that? I think you did it for yourself. So you wouldn’t have to live without her. But guess what? She’s going to have to live without you now. But what if she knew how much it cost? What if she knew it cost your soul? How do you think she’d feel? 

This is interesting because I usually fall on the line that Dean sold himself to save Sam because he felt like he wasn’t worth it and was on borrowed tim  _anyway_  from after John saved  _him_ , but here we have him actually looking at the emotional side of it since this is what happened to him with John and what he’s been going through personally, and  _that_  is also what he’ll have in his mind when selling himself for Sam but he does it anyway, despite how bad it felt.

I guess, self-worth and programming to save Sam at all costs hardwired into him undermines everything he felt and he gets it from the other side of feeling like Sam with this emotional trauma but alive is still better than Sam dead.

… Evan says he’d had traded himself to drop dead on the spot as per John, but this also does make me thing that, give or take some years sliding around, if John had made a normal deal, it would have only been up this season. :P

* * *

Sam asks if Dean is okay, and Dean’s like “why wouldn’t I be?”

> SAM  
> You know, you’ve been on edge ever since we found that crossroads, Dean, and I think I know why.
> 
> DEAN  
> We don’t have time for this.
> 
> SAM  
> Dad. You think maybe Dad made one of these deals, huh? Hell. I’ve been thinking it. I’m sure you’ve been thinking it too. 
> 
> DEAN  
> It fits, doesn’t it? I’m alive, Dad’s dead. The yellow-eyed demon was involved. What if he did? What if he struck a deal? My life for his soul?

I mean they don’t  _know_  that deals are sealed with a kiss but we now do. :P I don’t know why I’m so amused by this - perhaps because even though it’s obvious with a bit of thought, the show never discussed it and so of course pointing it out time and time again is exactly what they  _don’t_  want us thinking about.

:P

(Sorry I can’t think of much to say on the actual emotional stuff going on that isn’t blindingly obvious or just wailing about Dean, so)

I am glad they worked it out themselves and the plot didn’t just fling it at them - like, they’re both really smart, so it would probably be  _weirder_  if they had no idea John might have done it until a demon told them. The only reason they didn’t openly come to this conclusion sooner (Sam was pressing Dean to talk about it in 2x02 after all) was because they were all emotionally repressed about the whole thing, not stupid.

* * *

Ahhh man, Dean putting his picture into the box to summon a demon. Not ominous at all. :P

* * *

(Cut to Crowley complaining about who even summons any more)

* * *

What I like about this early encounter is Dean’s  _so_  outmatched by the demon  _all_  he can do is talk or trap it or exorcise it or whatever: he doesn’t have any way to kill it, which makes their conversation that much more interesting because the stakes are so against him.

Once he casually outmatches a demon it’s no fun.

Well he casually outmatches multiple demons at once by mid-season 9. At this point he probably COULD casually stroll into Hell and no one would complain because they won’t want to start trouble.

* * *

“First time?” she asks him, foreshadowing maybe… Or a very amusing comment considering how casually they end up abusing the crossroads system.

* * *

“Don’t sell yourself short.” What is WITH demons and puns??

* * *

Didn’t someone have a theory she or the one Dean sold his soul too was Crowley dropping by to say hi?

* * *

Dean asked for a contract to be broken and she says it’s not negotiable. Welp. Better cancel season 3 then and skip right to Cas. :P

* * *

“Well, well, well. You’d sacrifice your life for someone else’s. Like father, like son.”

It’s probably a good thing he and Sam hastily had a conversation about this. :P Dean doesn’t look happy but so not surprised. I can imagine the writers sticking in the previous conversation to cushion this one just so they could move past annoying reaction emoting and carry on with the good stuff.

Also: sobbing about the foreshadowing. Who lets them get away with this stuff??

* * *

I like how once the door starts rattling Sam takes a liiiittle hop into the goofer dust, even though they’re not coming for him, just to be sure.

* * *

“I’m not going to put you out of your misery. […] Your misery’s the whole point. It’s too much fun to watch.”

That seems to be literally the premise of the show.

* * *

“It’s all you ever think about. You wake up and your first thought is, “I can’t do this anymore.” You’re all lit up with pain. I mean, you loved him so much. And it’s all your fault.”

I love when other people tell Dean what he’s thinking because he’ll never say it out loud.

And by love it I mean  _bring me back my happy Dean with his plate of chips from what was literally that morning_.

(I know I know, this implies before he ate the chips he thought all those sad things, but at least he was pretending to be okay so I could pretend he was okay :P)

(Ugh season 2 is painful for a Dean!girl)

* * *

Sam missed the vent and that’s how the hellhound got in. I bet Sam never misses the vent ever again. :P

* * *

Hm, the general population of demons really didn’t know about the apocalypse. Getting John down there to work over and try to break the first seal was priority for Azazel, and then this demon is like “lol yeah I can bring him back and give you 10 years together!”

She did say she only head about them in their newsletter, so perhaps the pertinent details of the plan were missed out.

* * *

It’s so painful watching Dean pretend to try and sell himself for John and having to go through all this even though he was just trying to trap her, because it’s not like this doesn’t affect him, hearing all these words about having the family back together for ten whole years, when that was all he wanted in season 1 and managed like, a week tops.

Ouch.

* * *

But yay the reveal of his cunning plan! One more smart Dean moment for the file, since he had to plan all of this well in advance and that included the fake out trap under the car (no  _way_  was he going to let a demon get in and get their grubby paws all over Baby… that’s for later seasons :P) and then opening himself up for emotional gutting all for the sake of making her follow him into the real trap with all the dramatic wandering around of a stage play…

And all for some random bloke he didn’t think deserved being saved in the abstract… He probably did feel pretty guilty for mocking him when they first met, but even so :P

* * *

Is the exorcism actually going to work to make the Hellhounds stop? 

I guess so. And she really doesn’t want to go back to Hell.

I guess she can be summoned but she’s not actually being called up from Hell? Maybe she just chillaxes somewhere when she doesn’t have deals to make?

I dunno :P

(Edit to add: so the guy who made a deal to save a loved one from death DID get saved this episode, unlike Dean in season 3. Woops. :P)

* * *

Dean now knows deals work with kisses, so he’s going to have some fridge horror and never talk about what he realised next time he’s driving and sorting through this all in his head.

* * *

One more emotional manipulation for the road! “Hell sucks and John’s being tortured, you’d love it!” 

… Which makes Dean call her a bitch. Yay. >.> I’m not going to count him saying it or anything, mostly because I’ll loose count way too quickly.

* * *

“How am I supposed to live with that?” Dean asks, grinning. I looove his dead-inside-smiles. Just just stares dead ahead the whole time while driving.

* * *

I think I pin-pointed the moment where he realises John kissed Azazel. :P *desperately scraping humour into it*

* * *

I like that when Dean turns on the radio to ignore his own trauma and drown out the conversation he turns it on over the background music of the episode, drowning that out. 

Heh, Dean vs the music. Always my favourite thing.

* * *

> SAM  
> He did it for you.
> 
> DEAN  
> Exactly. How am I supposed to live with that? You know, the thought of him… wherever he is right now. I mean, he spent his whole life chasing that… yellow-eyed son of a bitch. He should have gone out fighting. That was supposed to be his legacy. You know? Not bargaining with the damn thing. Not this. 
> 
> SAM  
> How many people do you think Dad saved? Total?
> 
> DEAN  
> That’s not the point, Sam.
> 
> SAM  
> Evan Hudson is safe because of what Dad taught us. That’s his legacy, Dean. But we’re still here, man. So we gotta keep going, for him. Dean?
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah.
> 
> SAM  
> When you were trapping that demon, you weren’t… I mean, it was all a trick, right? You never considered actually making that deal, right?

I’m interested in this discussion about legacy considering I’ve mentioned it coming up before already - mostly to do with how John raised them but also in their decisions in how to keep going and what they want to do. Sam sort of throws himself into hunting this season because he thinks it’s what John would want, but Dean has a much more complicated legacy handed to him because John’s legacy for him was to bring him back and weigh him with the task to possibly have to kill Sam. So here Sam expresses just that: that they saved people, that they’re doing the simple, easy part of the family business just like John wanted. Meanwhile Dean is completely burdened by it, and we have the little seed planted in 2x01 starting to grow now where Dean has seriously thought about his own worth compared to the lives of his family, and been tempted to make the trade back again for John…

Also: Dean saying John should have gone out fighting. Compare to how often Dean says that about himself in later seasons. He thinks it’s the most honourable way to die, I guess. Bleh. 


	9. 2x09

Or: I sometimes wonder if they forgot about this episode until season 5 because in hindsight that’s a really long time to keep us in suspense to what this was all for. :P I don’t think we ever hear about this again until The End? Really?

*spends the entire episode trying to remember if that’s right* *comes up with nothing* 

Someone will come along and tell me I’m wrong if I am - they usually do :P *thanks whoever that is in advance* 

* * *

I couldn’t remember what episode this was based off the previously bumf, and I was trying to recall what plot episodes were in season 2. Then the opening shot of the actual episode was Dean being 1000% scary and off a second of footage I instinctively went, “Holy fuck it’s like Endverse Dean!” … “Ohhhh.”

I am now concerned and impressed that I immediately made this association based off the slant of Jensen’s eyebrows, and that Croatoan = terrifying Dean making these emotional compromises to shoot the infected… Don’t remember if this vision was averted or not, but he certainly  _would_  have made this call even if it was since Sam’s visions show an actual potential future.

* * *

In hindsight of “Right,  _this_  episode,” the opening montage focussing on Sam’s powers and Dean’s anger makes a pretty alarming case that they’re trying to make us think Dean actually would be a threat to Sam.

I can’t remember if I was actually worried about that the first time I watched but I don’t think so. :P

* * *

Anyway,  _gratuitous_  angry!Dean with a gun in the opening seconds.

* * *

And then we cut to Sam kipping on the floor and Dean wandering in being dorky and harmless since I can’t remember if they make us suspect Dean has the virus but they want you worrying about it for a lot of the episode. Or perhaps to give us an example of his surface level holding it together that he’s been displaying in between being scary.

I like the lamp in here:

Red motel rooms are showing up a lot and I can’t tell if they just liked the aesthetic (red seems to be the only colour that doesn’t get washed out, because then you wouldn’t appreciate the blood splatter most episodes :P) or if it’s an omen of doom.

It’s definitely an omen of doom.

* * *

Thinking of those, this is about the episode we should realise that Sam might be susceptible to being fed visions to make him go places, like how Harry was tricked in Order of the Phoenix. :P

* * *

Oh good some early strife with Dean casually defending himself shooting the guy in the cold open because he was probably right (and he does value his own moral code enough to think he wouldn’t shoot someone in cold blood), but then Sam, having seen it and how scary Dean looked, and experienced all the panic from the other people there, isn’t so sure that Dean was in the right and makes that known. Honesty is great an all, but he’s really just making Dean grumpy here by expressing so much concern before they can know all the facts. 

* * *

Okay, the mist in this episode looks like a natural feature of the landscape not something they pumped in.

* * *

Asking questions to find the guy from Sam’s vision, Sam describes him as having a thin scar on his forehead as his distinguishing feature. I mean, it wasn’t  _the_  scar but now I’ve sort of ruined this episode for myself by deciding it’s all a Harry Potter shout out.

* * *

Just to make sure we remember John’s influence on everything this episode, he gets a shout out with Dean trying to ease over the guy with the fishing rod (Mark, apparently) by making a nod to his Marines tattoo. 

(While I was checking his name, Superwiki told me this is one of the rare fictional towns in the show, which is a little unnerving for the town’s chances of survival if you know your geography before the episode starts.)

* * *

Wait so Sam wouldn’t have noticed the CROATOAN scratching on the pole if he hadn’t walked directly into it and turned to apologise?

I have my favourite Sam moment of the season.

Maybe the show.

* * *

*vague grumbling about Dean acting like he doesn’t remember a thing from school* I mean he immediately does remember it and specific details, so it’s really just upsetting me that this is his defence mechanism of “lol i dum” and then everyone forgets it’s an instinctive response from him to play up Sam being nerdy in contrast to him. And by ‘everyone’ I mean ‘occasionally some TV writers entrusted with the ongoing characterisation of Dean Winchester on the TV show Supernatural’.

When actually this was showing us that Dean DOES make those layers around himself of untrue characterisation and showing us that we shouldn’t always believe everything he instinctively says about himself when he feels threatened.

So I’m just going to get all protective of him now. :P

(But yeah Sam absorbing all that mystery stuff like a sponge. He’s generally really credible about stuff, probably because he was brought up knowing monsters were real after a point, and so from then on I suppose anything he heard would be like, ‘well why not this too?’ and then absorb information like the unsolved mystery of Roanoke like it might be useful lore he’d have to know one day.)

(Which it then was so points to Sam. :P)

(I do wonder if there was an aborted attempt at the apocalypse back then. I suppose if it was around the time of people settling America and if we allow that that place where Lucifer was raised from was one of the few cracks he could get through, and it hadn’t mattered when it was out in a wilderness (and probably Native folk left it weeelll enough alone :P) but once a ton more people came over the demons thought they might have a go at it? I dunno. I spend some days grumpy about the America-centric mythos even though they’re kind of chained to that, and other days allowing them to get away with it :P)

* * *

“What do you think could do that?”

Hm, Pestilence is somewhere around in the background of this episode.

I feel like I should try to spot him.

* * *

That awkward moment when you’re the first people in a whole town to realise the communications were cut off. No one else was on it yet? This really is set in simpler times.

* * *

Well except for the bit where they’re panicking about an entire town being obliterated - that’s the sort of anxiety they only really had in apocalypse times.

* * *

*extremely unsubtle at lying family* *Sam n Dean instantly agree that they need to snoop more*

* * *

I forgot that Croatoan doesn’t just turn people into bloodthirsty monsters - the dad and son were both infected and talked to Sam n Dean and while they were pretty dodgy liars they seemed at least more normal than you’d expect of people affected with a zombie disease, and they were being more calculated about spreading the disease. They only flipped out when it got into a combat situation. Can’t tell if the infected were dumbed down later or perhaps if this strain of the disease is less affecting to their higher mental faculties until they go into rage mode, for the sake of taking over the town subtly, and the strain used in the apocalypse was I dunno more virulent or something and more closely resembled a zombie outbreak? 

* * *

PIE.

I feel this is a deeply typical picture of Dean, although he’s not going to get his pie today.

* * *

“They had the devil in them.” *Sam n Dean exchange significant looks*

I suppose on my casual Lucifer spotting trip, this doesn’t really count especially since we learn all about the virus later, but still. :P Nice little name drop.

* * *

Argh, then Dean has a go at Sam for not shooting the guy as he ran off. One more point towards Dean just casually shooting the infected. 

I hope there’s agreement across the board we do just call End!Dean by a specific ! modifier to signify time difference and not a change in character. :P This episode is very much showing the roots of how he would have become that guy over time when confronted with such a problem as mass outbreak.

* * *

I think they just casually lied about having a police radio? I mean technically it would be true if they were actual marshals and had one it wouldn’t be working, but still. :P

* * *

Heh heh, the car stopped in the middle of the road when Dean tries driving out has the numberplate WTF, which I think reflects how they feel about the problem right now…

* * *

Ew, that’s a lot of blood and a baby seat.

* * *

This whole one road in and out of town thing is a really bad idea. Is it honestly that common in America? Who designed that country?? 

* * *

So yeah the infected here can also stand around with guns looking chill in their blockade. Like yeah they’re murdering babies and they’re assumed to be people who wouldn’t casually murder a baby, but they’re also totally capable of having a conversation with Dean without openly raving.

* * *

Not that you can say they were very friendly to start with, but when the guy mentions they got a call from the sheriff (and Dean knows communications are cut off) you can see it click over that this is  _definitely_  a situation. Then pretty much the next lines are the exchange about getting out of the car, and that infamous in fandom fights line about “you’re a handsome devil but I don’t swing that way.” See above: literally 5 minutes or so ago it being established Dean says stuff defensively when threatened… Honestly the context of it doesn’t even just extend to Dean being threatened in the moment, but fits into a little character narrative for the episode. >.>

* * *

Aw man, Dean’s good at the stunt driving.

* * *

And Sam’s pretty handy with a fire extinguisher. :P 

* * *

Dean’s second drive into the town makes much better use of all that atmospheric mist when 10 minutes earlier it was a bustling, friendly place. 

* * *

I am quite amused by Mark and Dean yelling at each other and super intense, and then Mark mentioning his neighbour Mr Rogers and Dean just immediately picking up on that. He’s got an involuntary joke reflex… You could probably bring him back from the dead by making an oblique pop culture reference next to him. *wonders if there’s something in Crowley’s little speech from 9x23 that Dean would have laughed at if he had the chance*

* * *

*super intense driving while pointing guns at each other*

* * *

Sam (on recapping that it’s a demon virus) “that explains why I’ve been having visions.”

*pats him on the head and makes a cup of tea*

Dean: “it’s like a Biblical plague”

… *sighs and goes to make more tea for him* 

Guys. Srsly. You have no idea. :P

* * *

> SAM  
> Yeah. You don’t know how right you are, Dean. I’ve been poring through Dad’s journal, found something about the Roanoke colony. 
> 
> DEAN  
> And?
> 
> SAM  
> Dad always had a theory about Croatoan. He thought it was a demon’s name. Sometimes known as Deva or sometimes Resheph. A demon of plague and pestilence.

Pestilence is here then. :P I’m just going to figure that’s a not thinking big enough thing to conceptualise the horseman when all they know are demons.

* * *

Mark finds out they have Beverly in custody, and after explaining that she’s still dangerous to them, Dean immediately makes the decision to shoot her. Sam doesn’t complain, though looks very unhappy about telling Dean that yes she is one of the infected. After all, he levelled her with a fire extinguisher to  _avoid_  having to kill her.

Dean basically just goes on experience and Sam’s say-so that she’s definitely worth killing, as she’s begging and sobbing and acting “normal” again (like the guy in the cold open), and he shoots her three times to be sure >.>  

* * *

I’m just getting more and more emotionally gummed up about how this season so far is Dean suffering from what John told him about killing Sam, and how he’s killing the Croats here mercilessly because their infection has taken away their humanity (loosely defined by this show as “generally not murdering people by nature) and then down in Endverse you have Dean killing Croats while building up to having to kill Sam because he’s been possessed by Lucifer - the endgame result of what John had only just started to find out the beginning of the plan to achieve, and this episode is testing to make sure Sam is immune as the whole point of priming him for the apocalypse…

*takes a few deep breaths*

Plot episodes with hindsight are horrible and this one is reflected in one of the most depressing episodes. :P

* * *

“Has anyone seen my mom and dad?” Dean: *dramatic stage whisper* “Aaawkward.”

Ugh, Dean. >.> 

I feel there’s some commentary to make on him killing the entire family. (Or at least at this point the threat of him killing the entire family.)

Anyway that comment definitely helps show Dean in general is off-kilter this episode - although he doesn’t trust the kid not to be infected right now anyway, there’s like no sympathy for what he did: the Croats are providing a clear threat he can kill and it’s bringing out the ingrained monster racism he was struggling with realising he felt and was using the monsters as release for killing in 2x03 - less and less mysterious about why they felt the need to mention John again in the background of this episode. :P

* * *

Aaaand we’ve caught up with Sam’s vision.

> SAM  
> All right, then we should keep him tied up, and we should wait and see. 
> 
> DEAN  
> For what? For him to Hulk out and infect somebody else? No thanks, can’t take that chance. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Hey look, man, I’m not happy about this, okay? But it’s a tough job and you know that.
> 
> SAM  
> It’s supposed to be tough, Dean. We’re supposed to struggle with this, that’s the whole point.
> 
> DEAN  
> What does that buy us?
> 
> SAM  
> A clear conscience, for one!
> 
> DEAN  
> Well, it’s too late for that. 
> 
> SAM  
> What the hell’s happened to you?
> 
> DEAN  
> What?
> 
> SAM  
> You might kill an innocent man, and you don’t even care! You don’t act like yourself anymore, Dean. Hell, you know what? You’re acting like one of those things out there. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Mm-hmm.

Dean’s been told it takes 3 hours for it to manifest in their blood if a victim keeps acting normally, and they have managed to contain someone with the infection already: keeping him 3 hours isn’t impossible at this point and combined with Dean sort of joking about killing the rest of his family, he’s definitely gone off the deep end where Croats are concerned - he’s developed a pathological hatred of them in a day. They’re definitely meaning more to him than just victims. The association with Sam’s visions and the demon traces in them make them a good safe way to vent his frustrations with everything so far out of his control - and that one thing John put in his control as his final words.

Dean says it’s a tough job, and Sam replies that it’s supposed to be: that the moral struggle is a part of what they do. That it’s the  _point_. It’s interesting to have that reflective perspective on their work: I’m not sure they’d go into it for the character building morality issues if they had a choice, but it’s further romanticising of the job and building a sort of mythos still (I am too tired to remember if I’ve been assigning this to Sam or Dean or both lately but I feel like this is a continuation of Sam’s ideals this season). Saying that the  _point_  of what they do is to face these struggles is just really interesting to me… Perhaps it’s subtly a nod to Sam’s faith. Bad things happen but as a test or whatever: I think seeing the struggles you go through as the focus of life shaping you and challenging you fits into that sort of Christian mentality, and I think maybe with accepting at this point that there’s something about fate then? If challenges are set before you and facing them is the  _point_  then someone is setting the challenges and therefore Sam, as opposed to later, is actually pro-fate, ascribing what happens to them as having some sort of agency.

The line about it being too late for a clear conscience is important: either Dean is actually feeling regret for killing the family so far, or this is another nod to all the swirling issues underneath where he always feels like he is somehow to blame for everything. Anyway it’s a nod to the fact he is carrying all this baggage, which is important when he’s been spiralling into being terrifying all episode.

And then Sam compares him to being as bad as the Croats; honestly the monsters always seem to bring out the worst in Dean, whatever they are that week. :P I think at this point though we’ve not seen Dean get infected or really a  _chance_  for that, when he bursts in to irrationally try and kill Duane despite how we haven’t seen that there’s still this feeling he’s just as violent and dangerous as they are that you wonder if he did somehow get infected. 

This is the same anger he was dealing with in 2x03 and he’s just been pushing it down the whole time: this episode forces him to actually tell Sam what John said, if I remember correctly? That or next episode. Anyway he’s reaching the breaking point on it and we’ve been watching him spiral all season until he’s quickly reached the sort of point we see only when something is  _deeply_  wrong, like End!Dean or Mark of Cain!Dean or something. 

* * *

If Dean didn’t go through with it because Sam told him not to but they were only there because Sam got a vision to go there so the only reason Dean would be in the vision is if Sam had the vision and then subsequently told Dean about it and warned him not to kill Duane because he’d had the vision of him doing it, then how did Dean not kill Duane when he had killed him before? 

… I’m pretty certain this was a formulated vision based mostly off the truth of what was to come, and that actually knowing that he did it in the vision almost pushed Dean over, but his own morality wouldn’t let him do it,  _but_  Sam’s visions are death omen visions and so to arouse the least suspicion the vision was formulated  _as_ a death omen vision based 99% on real events. The extra screwing with their heads to unsettle them is just a bonus. :P All it  _needed_ to do was get them to town and put them somewhere they’d be exposed to it, but playing off the fact Dean is spiralling into a murderous rage of his own is just really amusing to Azazel.

* * *

Sam challenges Dean to say why he didn’t do it and Dean deflects the question. I’m starting to feel if the vision was calculated just to bring Sam there (i.e. Dean shooting Duane especially if he genuinely wasn’t infected, had 0% to do with any specific instance of demony magic happening: if anything would have triggered the vision naturally it would perhaps be the transmission of the disease, but that’s really boring :P) then the fact there was a burden on Dean to kill Duane is basically another version of John telling Dean he has to kill Sam (more John/Azazel parallels!). That is, Dean goes into the situation with the expectation he has to kill someone without knowing why (for a chunk of the episode) and without knowing if they actually deserved it. I suppose it almost could have acted as a trigger to Dean: being told something superficially similar to the burden he’s already under, and so him not going through with it is a sign he won’t do the same to Sam. But would explain the sharp upswing in his erratic and angry behaviour in the episode.

Aah, Dean vs destiny. :P

* * *

And then just to make it really fun, after that fake out, the whole point of the exercise was to infect Sam, and so Dean, by still being here, is made to face this  _all over again_  just a couple of hours after he shook off the  _last_  horrible “you’re going to kill someone” warning. And this time it’s Sam! \o/

* * *

Azazel kinda trumps John for trauma in this episode, though tbh they sort of tag-team Dean’s mental breakdown, since this wouldn’t have worked quite so effectively at ruining Dean’s day  _without_  John’s warning living in the back of his mind.

* * *

Dean yelling at Mark about not killing Sam has him go deep into that scary John-reminiscent drill sergeant yelling mode.

* * *

“Take my car” Aaaaargh.

Aaaaaaargh.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

* * *

Dean’s wearing a black jacket which is clearly not a good sign. :P

Ugh. 

Is Dean even planning to kill Sam or would he just wait it out and let Sam kill him or what? 

This is such a horrible emotional defeat I can’t even tell what he wants from it except to not put up with this emotional burden any more - his dialogue as this scene carries on is all full of self-defeat and suicidal ideation and he’s sitting there holding a gun with probably nooo intent to shoot Sam. Argh.

> DEAN  
> I’m tired, Sam. I’m tired of this job, this life … this weight on my shoulders, man. I’m tired of it. 
> 
> SAM  
> So what, so you’re just going to give up? You’re just gonna lay down and die? Look, Dean, I know this stuff with Dad has —
> 
> DEAN  
> You’re wrong. It’s not about Dad. I mean, part of it is, sure, but…

Urrrgh.

* * *

I bet Duane was Pestilence.

His family was ground zero, and he showed up right before Pam goes at Sam. (I thought she might be Pestilence, but Duane sort of feels more like the one in the right place at the right time). Pam seems to suggest she’s been infected the whole time and has had the motivation put in her to infect Sam and specifically Sam, so she has higher orders and the ability not to hulk out until it’s time to infect Sam. Perhaps she was taking too long and Duane showed up to make sure it happened. Perhaps since the vision was crafted around him as well?

* * *

OH Duane was a demon the whole time. (I knew I didn’t trust him :P)

So Pam was Pestilence after all. And just played along with being shot because she’d done her part.

I suppose Pestilence wouldn’t trust anyone else to make sure Sam got infected properly, which explains everything about her behaviour.

* * *

Aaand cue probably a really tragic BM scene. I can’t remember what they say by the river but I remember this being the quintessential conversation. :P

* * *

Dean adds “we were about to die so it doesn’t count” to the list of reasons why any emotional outburst was completely off the record and shouldn’t be probed at. His rules for when you’re allowed to express emotion and the fact that mitigating circumstances mean it doesn’t count are horrendous.

* * *

The fact he’s asking for time off to go to the Grand Canyon and then in season 10 is still asking for time off to go to the beach is killing me. The whole beach thing emotionally levelled me. And then when I tried shoving away all the season 10 feelings to focus on season 2 I remembered this instead: [http://archiveofourown.org/works/2464457](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F2464457&t=ZjU0NDI2NDE2MzNmYjBhOTY2ZjBlY2U1ODAwYjQwNDRhMjkzYmM2ZSx0ZE1pOWNBZw%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F122356210248%2Fspn-hellatus-rewatch-2x09-or-i-sometimes-wonder&m=1)

(I sobbed like a baby the entire way through it - you might want to read the warnings if you’re affected by major character death)

* * *

TBH thinking of major character death, Dean saying all this and stuff he said earlier could make you think he was actually the one dying and wanted to do some bucket list stuff. (I guess he’s sort of yearning for brotherly bonding bucket list stuff, cramming in some good before the looming awful comes for them.)

* * *

Oh lordy, Sam’s wearing that shirt I hate. Is my irrational dislike of the shirt because I associate it with this conversation?

* * *

I think the fact the episode ends before we find out what Dean’s been not telling Sam the entire time is probably quite symbolic of his overall emotional repression and dislike of talking about the difficult things.


	10. 2x10

Or: unexpected feelings about Sam and shoes.

* * *

Wait, this special child had an ability that started with migraines??

*stares directly into the camera*

*one eye twitches closed because I’m riding out a headache right now*

* * *

 _Honestly_  when he offers his hand to the psychiatrist to test if he believes him is super creepy. He said he could electrocute things if he  _wanted_  and then mentioned the cat - that was  _no accident_.

I can’t remember what happens to this guy but wow is he one of the worst so far. :P

* * *

Love the music in the background of this.

Dean wouldn’t - I’m pretty sure it’s Jefferson Starship? 

* * *

Aah, another kid Yellow Eyes has been in contact with in his dreams. He really picks the good ones. >.> I swear he’s actually conducting a long-term science experiment on the effect of demon blood on a random selection of children. Some are the control group. Some are inspired to vengeance like Sam, some are encouraged…

This guy says he doesn’t want to do the bad things Azazel suggests he does, but he  _did_  willingly electrocute a cat as a child, so I guess that’s the potential Azazel sees in him.

* * *

Seriously the  _music_.

* * *

Aaaand we’re back to the bro angst after Dean took a week or however long between air dates to fess up.

* * *

Considering how  _much_  this affected Dean’s behaviour over the last 9 episodes, it’s pretty impressive looking back on how much this moment changes the start of the season in your perspective (if you came to it blind). At this point it’s impossible for me to separate hindsight from how it looked the first time through… Like I said earlier in the rewatch Dean suddenly becomes “recognisable” as our traumatised Dean from every season after, so with 9 seasons so far of bias towards Dean being this miserable angry person instead of the more cheery season 1 child… It’s hard to really reflect on how alarming the change was except for all the season 1 cooing in surprise at how happy he was and noting when you stop reacting in pleasant surprise to his behaviour. :P

* * *

“He said that he wanted me to watch out for you, to take care of you.” “He told you that a million times.” 

Ahaahaaa. Because the next lines are so awful they sort of turn this into the positive thing but seriously. There’s looking out for your brother and then there’s what John put Dean through. I’m not forgetting Something Wicked any time soon. :P

* * *

Worst use of “Sammy” in the entire series.

*dead*

* * *

It’s interesting that Sam lashes out by getting angry that Dean didn’t tell him - or, well, he starts angry wondering what it even means, and then immediately switches to telling Dean he had no right to keep it from him, and then Dean says he didn’t say because John told him not to. The ongoing theme of John withholding information from them for what he deemed to be the greater good, and Dean stepping in to continue that tradition. *sighs*

“Who cares?! Take some responsibility for yourself, Dean!” 

And this line is interesting because despite the delay in telling, the fact is Dean is still disobeying John by telling Sam now, which both of them are overlooking to be upset about the 9 episode gap before that rebellion… Dean did make a different call  _eventually_ , but it took him a long time, and going through an internal hell, but he decided to do it - no one forced him and for once the rare moment of honesty just comes because Dean decided to be honest instead of a spell or monster spilling it for Dean.

* * *

> SAM  
> What? That I don’t turn evil? That I don’t turn into some kind of killer?
> 
> DEAN  
> I never said that.
> 
> SAM  
> Jeez, if you’re not careful you will have to waste me one day, Dean.

Pro tip: don’t make threats like that >.> 

Yeah, this got sprung on Sam and he’s angry but I reserve the right to be grumpy after delving deep into Dean’s trauma every episode. :P And yeah Sam probably fears this about himself after what everyone all around him seems to have been worrying about - and now Dean and John too, so his lashing out is understandable, but…

*clutches the sizeable chunk of my heart dedicated to Dean*

* * *

Ah good Sam’s up to car thievery. This is going to go well. :P

Ooh this is where he explodes?

Okay I suppose that’s a good way to make up the sympathy deficit. :P

* * *

*kabloom*

* * *

All that’s left of Sam is a blood-soaked shoe. That’s ironic. 

* * *

Ava’s got the proper mankey hair for someone who just woke up after a horrible nightmare. 

* * *

*Sam casually walks back into the next scene looking fine*

(But still in the horrible shirt)

* * *

I don’t know if they just didn’t want to pay for Jo in the episode (I can’t remember how much actually happens this episode but it feels cluttered with all the storylines being set up so far :P) but her absconding and hitting the road and us finding out when Sam has absconded and hit the road is a further extremely direct parallel between them so it’s probably intentional absence all along as it follows along her character arc.

Ellen and Dean both wanted Jo and Sam to “lay low” or not hunt to stay safe and we saw Sam arguing against laying low (possibly just because he was feeling contrary to Dean :P) but he’s also been more pro-hunting this season, as Dean is majorly disillusioned thanks to John’s death while Sam is spurred on. (As Jo also was spurred on by the memory of her dad.)

* * *

Ellen says she forgave John, but in the heat of the moment she was furious and anxious when getting Jo back from them in No Exit. This  _feels_  like one of those things where in rational calm days you say you forgave as in it’s not permanently eating at her, but the “never forget” side is still extremely strong.

* * *

*Ash casually finishing people’s drinks in the background*

* * *

Ellen says she has to call Dean to tell him where Sam is - basically again what happened (or, didn’t) in No Exit when Dean had Jo with him. Sam convinces Ellen not to call Dean yet, exactly like what Jo did with Dean. Hm.

* * *

Creeeepy yellow eyes mood board.

* * *

It’s a good thing this motel is really clear about its name and branding. :P

It’s extremely blue in contrast to all the red motels we’ve seen… 

And Ava is the one who blends into it while Sam wears red. Sam never fits in with the motel room. :P

* * *

Hmm, Sam’s death is not by supernatural means, despite him being one of the special children… I feel like (especially off the back of Croatoan and the opening of this episode and literally last scene reminder that Azazel goes into dreams) this was probably another semi-forced vision. Azazel plays favourites with Sam (he seemed to really enjoy the antagonism John offered him and likes the challenge of converting a hunter - the weak kids who turned evil fast all die fast too and are unstable and dangerous to themselves as well as others)… So if he was going to die by normal boring means just in the line of work (well Gordon wanted to get him  _because_ of the special children thing?), once again there’s a handy death vision special child nearby who he can influence to dream of Sam’s death exactly as it would have happened despite it not being caused by powers, and bam, Sam lives to fight another day.

* * *

Ava’s scepticism is very refreshing. I like characters who are introduced to it all and even if they start getting credible still need a big processing jump for really weird stuff dumped on them.

* * *

I was right about the “hm” earlier - Ellen spills everything to Dean, having learned exactly what it feels like to be worried for a child who wandered off recently.

* * *

“Why can’t you just leave town before you blow up?” “I can’t.”

(Sam goes on to expound on his destiny and the need to uncover the greater conspiracy) This is basically again the conversation with Dean earlier - Ava has a clear idea of how much danger Sam is in - more than Dean just suspects/worries about - and so she’s counselling him to drop his quest before it gets him killed (hahaha hello end of the season), and Sam’s refusing to do that.

(Well I mean he would have been dumped into the Hunger Games at the end of the season anyway no matter what happened, but still. :P)

* * *

Awww Ava saying how normal you are. :( 

* * *

> AVA  
> I just remembered, when I was a kid, I swallowed like, eight things of pop rocks and then drank a whole can of coke, you don’t think that that counts as a suicide attempt, do you? 

Hehehe, one of the best lines.

* * *

Aaand she has a taste for danger now apparently. “I’m awesome!” she squeaks, squeakily. 

She is a problematic cinnamon roll. I feel like I’m witnessing the very beginning of her descent.

* * *

Sam needs to stop enabling people’s criminal/murdery careers. :P

* * *

I like Dean’s complete switch around from worrying about Sam to being delighted that he ditched him to go spend time with a girl. (In Provenance he wanted Sam and Sarah to hook up to help Sam vent some frustration so I suppose he’s thinking this fight between them will be massively eased if Sam got some. :P)

* * *

It’s a good thing there’s a recording of Azazel’s plan just lying around.

* * *

It’s a good thing Dean’s around to jump on Gordon.

* * *

Dean tied to a chair. Funky tooown.

* * *

I like how Sam has to clarify that that one is all Dean.

I like the idea of Dean coming up with really nerdy code words. And Sam is like “How do we ever fit that into a regular conversation? HOW?!” and Dean’s like, “I’ll find a way.”

I bet he felt considerable pride in flawlessly dropping funky town into his phone call without it sounding weird.

Except for the fact I don’t think people say “Funky” any more.

* * *

Dean reeeally shouldn’t make fun of the guy who has him tied to a chair.

* * *

Oh, is Ava’s car the same shade of blue?

(And Sam in a still-opposing reddish brown)

* * *

“Go home Ava, you’ll be safe there.” Hahaha.

Haaa.

* * *

“This is how you die!” “Doesn’t matter, it’s my brother.”

Pfft. This is a whole load of their issues expressed all at once.

* * *

Gordon was exorcising things in Louisiana, because states which are hard to replicate in Canada happen off-screen and can only be mentioned. :P

* * *

Gordon talks about torturing a demon for info (a young-ish girl, too) and the meatsuit not making it, to which Dean calls him a son of a bitch in a non-admiring way. Sadly, this level of meatsuit abuse is extremely common for Dean after a while and he already shot that one demon… I suppose he doesn’t kill too many women/children when the demon mooks are generally cast to dudes?

* * *

Ooops, Gordon says he got the info about Sam being psychic from mysterious Roadhouse connections. 

Guess Dean was right to initially be terrified of going there with Sam for help about this. 

* * *

“It’s how I found Sammy in the first place.”

Uuuh, unless someone was leaning right over the bar listening in, this pretty much implies either Ellen or Ash is feeding Gordon info, and we know how Ellen feels about Gordon.

 _CONSPIRACY_.

* * *

“He’s not going to fall for a tripwire.”

Uh, Ava would beg to differ. She  _knows_  Sam would. :P

* * *

Gordon tells Dean they need to take out all the psychic children - including Sam - and phrases it as a request to Dean for him to hunt with him. Literally in 2x03 we found out Gordon has no issues killing a sibling if they’ve been turned into a monster, and he said Dean wouldn’t have a problem with it if it… Dean already knew then what John said but now Gordon is in on it too and making Dean the same offer knowing that this situation is something he faces too. I wonder if there’s a little sense of seeking validation there - maybe not upfront emotions, but finding someone else with the killer instinct who would make the same call without flinching… And Dean rejecting that when he has full knowledge that Sam  _might_  be dangerous is just another sign to Gordon that what he did was wrong?

Meanwhile offering Dean lots of validation for his moral stance, because whatever else, he’s  _not_  going about this like Gordon and his understanding of his own position is made clearer, helping him realise he  _wouldn’t_  kill Sam because Gordon’s actions and suggestions make it that much more unthinkable.

We’re definitely into the build up to Dean selling his soul now. :P

* * *

Gordon points out it’s Sam’s destiny, so we’re definitely getting into Dean vs destiny territory.

* * *

Then he suggests John would have killed Sam if he had to and tells Dean he’s not the man John was. Gordon preeetty much exists to prod at Dean’s daddy issues. :P

“Yeah I met the guy once, he definitely seemed the sort to kill his own kid”

Buuut on the other hand, the nagging voice that John had warned Dean he’d have to kill Sam if he couldn’t save him,  _and_  the fact that because this was his dying words it was sort of like passing on the burden or  _legacy_  to Dean, and therefore implying these were the thoughts that John had about Sam, and therefore that he  _was_  emotionally steeling himself for the eventuality where he would have had to kill Sam, and to be ready for it.

So Dean doesn’t even have the complete confidence to say no he wouldn’t even if Gordon hadn’t gagged him at that point.

Which despite Dean’s long silence through this part, was probably symbolic of being gagged at that point to show he  _couldn’t_  answer that one.

* * *

Ah here’s Sam ready for round 2 of being blown up!

* * *

*kabloom*

* * *

Poor Dean. :(

* * *

*kabloom*

* * *

*one smoking shoe but without the blood splatter*

WAIT A SECOND. SAM TOOK HIS SHOE OFF. LIKE. “I LOST MY SHOE” BUT SAM IS IN CONTROL OF HIS OWN DESTINY HERE. HE WILLINGLY REMOVED HIS SHOE IN ORDER TO SPRING A TRAP AND CONTROL THE NARRATIVE.

“I lost my shoe” was a subversion of this. :O

Sam and shoes, guys.

* * *

Heh, Gordon teases Sam that Dean thinks he’s some sort of saint, Sam says not to be so sure about that, but then is too good to just shoot Gordon in cold blood while he has a gun on him, and so gets the snot kicked out of him.

* * *

And then again when Sam has him at gunpoint  _again_. 

Sam just asserts his name is not Sammy.

* * *

And stops Dean going in to rage murder kill Gordon while he’s out.

* * *

How did Sam know exactly when the police would come?

Unless he arranged the whole thing with them beforehand and they were waiting for him to flush Gordon out?

This seems slightly implausible especially as he said it was only an anonymous tip.

Oh well, it worked.

* * *

Dean takes Ellen to task for the Roadhouse connections. She casually dismisses that Ash would do it in the same breath as Jo.

Hmmm. *steeples fingers and stares hard*

* * *

*Sam becoming an anxious mother duck for the good special children* Yes, more of this please. While we’re here, go back and grab Andy, because you obviously only ditched him because at the last moment the writers realised he was too much of a good thing and the only reason he wouldn’t come with you was if you and Dean randomly took a moral stance on it being awkward to have him there, despite how much you liked him and how useful he was.

I know I know he brought up awkward questions about killing your evil brother and it would have made Dean super uncomfortable but he was already feeling that anyway.

* * *

Like imagine season 2 as a road trip where the back of the car slowly fills up with special children and we have Andy and Ava in the back right now squabbling over snacks and making Dean anxious about them eating in the car. :P

* * *

Can’t tell who has the worse sense of humour - Dean and his prison rape jokes or Sam teasing Dean about killing him after all the emotional trauma he’s been through this season. *clusters around my problematic cinnamon roll* Sam  _stop_.

* * *

Oh thinking of Andy… Dean suggests they bunk off and go to Amsterdam for a bit. (Andy from the AU season 2 in the back seat enthusiastically agreeing)

* * *

Dean’s weariness with the job comes bubbling over: “Screw the job. We don’t get paid, we don’t get thanked. All we get is bad luck.”

I’m actually really enjoying this narrative arc with Sam and Dean trading places on how they like the family business… The show’s great at keeping them in direct opposition to each other and swinging back and forth.

* * *

“C’mon dude, you’re a hunter. It’s what you were meant to do.”

“I don’t believe in that destiny crap.”

“You mean you don’t believe in  _my_  destiny.”

Again, Sam with the destiny and the idea of them as hunters being some part of, well, uh, what it turns out to be - the grand plan of things, the destiny in their bloodline going back forever. Dean has already been put on the “screw destiny” path this season, so it’s interesting that at least for now Sam is being enforced as the one leaning on the idea of a grand plan and destiny. Which is  _really_  interesting considering how everyone says his destiny is to go dark and fall in with these grand demony plans for him.

And again the idea of hunters as some sort of heroic figure - a mythical amazing job with these attachments of destiny and bloodline where the supposedly voluntary choice of a job is actually predetermined for you.

* * *

“Look Dean, I tried running before. I ran all the way to California. You can’t run from this.”

Actually, yeah, this episode had Sam doing the reverse of running away before the show started. His restrictive parent figure of the hour either wants him to keep hunting and do the family business (John) and so when he’s come around to that and is embracing this mythic hunter destiny crap his restrictive parent figure (Dean) is like screw this we’re going to the grand canyon and then to Amsterdam to get stoned. 

… Dean is the worst parent but I am amused by how this is the restrictive attitude Sam is fighting against. It’s as amusing a turn on the idea as Sam rebelling by going to college and trying to lead a normal life.

* * *

Ah, so Sam drags Dean back into hunting by saying he’s going to do it so if Dean is going to stick to his “keep Sammy safe” programming, he has to come with to keep him safe. Wee bit of emotional blackmail considering Dean is so done with everything and apparently his response to emotional trauma is to crave a break, but then Sam prods his  _greater_  emotional trauma (already actively bleeding from that moment he thought Sam went kaboom earlier in the episode) to reassert its priority.

I mean yeah Dean being done is badly timed for their lives, threatening to the format of the show in a meta way, and generally we need him back on board with hunting, but he’s not coming to it for himself, but for Sam. Considering the season ends how it does, stuff where Dean gives himself over to Sam above his own needs is just  _really painful_  to watch.

* * *

“What’s the point in saving the world if you can’t get a little nookie once in a while, huh?”

* * *

The extra who played Ava’s fiancé had all his appearances in bed. Such an easy job. :P

I suppose this is framed to make it look like Ava killed him (if the police won’t check for sulphur.)

Which Dean does, touching the window sill, so, uh, that means he’s leaving prints at the scene of the crime again. Dude, you’re a wanted criminal on the run.

* * *

The deleted scene with Ash hitting on a random woman at the pool table is sort of gross but does make me randomly decide even more he’s the secret inside source at the Roadhouse planning Sam’s doom, if only because he got annoyed by Sam “c-blocking” him and maybe he’s petty like that we don’t know. :P

* * *

Other deleted scene has Ava and Sam:

“If you’re so psychic why didn’t you have premonitions of your own death?”

“I’ve never really had premonitions about myself before.”

Honestly, Ava’s face is a treasure - I was tempted just to screen cap her expressions all the way through. :P But I mostly wanted to point out I didn’t notice the bedspreads being green and ruining all the blue. I like the design: they’re sitting on a tangled web of thorns. And they’re both sitting with their back to a different sort of trellis - Sam is linked to roses and it’s more ornate, while Ava’s just sort of fits into the general prison imagery with the plainer bars. Both trapped in their fates, but Sam’s is a grander plan.

Or something I don’t know.


	11. 2x11

Or: Some nice unsettling creepy kids and haunted houses to get us back on our feet! \o/

* * *

Love that camera pan across all the unnerving dolls.

I think she’s my favourite:

* * *

I wonder what happened to the dollhouse after this episode? If the house was a real hotel, perhaps they got to keep it? 

* * *

Although actually the cracked doll lying next to the dead guy is  _way_  more disturbing. 

* * *

Time for a demon moodboard!

Sam gets a special star because he is special:

It’s Dean’s handwriting.

* * *

Also evidenced by how rubbish the star is. I TOLD you in 2x07 that Dean would be shit at drawing stars. I TOLD YOU.

* * *

Poor Ava:

Doing her expression like that was just cruel if it’s meant to be a sketch (I’m guessing unflattering photo rendered like one instead by the photoshop department)

I’m a little concerned about the “place of employment” thing, as the pattern of day and night over last episode would have had her gone for 2 days no matter what.

* * *

Heeey it’s the partition from 1x21. I hope that’s not a warning or anything. :P

I’m impressed by Dean’s coffee cup balancing skills.

* * *

Hm, I was joking last episode about Sam not fitting into motel rooms with his colour scheme but he’s in neutral grey while Dean is shedding his jacket and going blue to the motel’s orange:

(I like the black and white circles in there too.)

Given the first major noticeable example of Sam being at odds with the motel room was in Asylum where he was overwhelmingly surrounded by red while wearing blue and Dean was blending in with the room wearing red, and the whole thing was reflective of their attitudes to being in hunting and John’s orders and Sam being made to go with Dean and do the job, and now we have a reversal where Dean is the one not fitting in, and Sam is both tracking the special children case, AND finding jobs to do on the side, powering through the main plot and finding them their distractions, this is probably a symbol of their complete role reversal since then. Blue is still at odds, but the opposing colour is brown/orange/grey - washed out versions of the red Dean was wearing but background colours that have been around Sam a few times (like in Faith which also had the motel colours important to them). With Dean as the grumpily unwilling passenger Sam has fully become Season 1 Dean, and Dean is basically season 1 Sam and after the run of plot episodes this is where we settle into the new pattern with the subtle shift in dynamic, probably. 

Dean is surprised Sam agreed to do the random case, assuming Sam would have gone droopy and soppy, staring out of rainy windows etc (I missed the line and too lazy to backtrack and listen again :P) because of Ava - not sure if he’s decided Sam got romantically attached to her with his insistence that that’s what Sam does, or if he’s missed the note where when terrible things happen Sam tends to get spurred on to the job and has basically never spent time moping unless they were completely helpless.

“Yeah I’ll shut up now,” Dean says. Good idea. :P

* * *

“But we’ve been looking for a month now, and we’ve got nothing. So I’m not giving up on her, but I’m not going to let other people die either. We’ve got to save as many people as we can.”

Yikes. Sam must have been fun to be around for that month. :P 

But yeah that does sort of summarise what I was poking at there about Sam’s mindset. He’s got the saving people thing going for him too at the moment - he’s embracing his hunter identity as per a ton of little comments through the last few episodes and along with that means not  _just_  being tied to the main plot or revenge arcs.

“That attitude is waaay too healthy for me,” replies Dean, who’s busy being emotionally disconnected.

* * *

“Dude, this is sweet.” *visceral flashback to the time I did the Dude Where’s My Car? drinking game where you drink on “dude” and “sweet”.

* * *

Dean mirrors my sentiment that we need an old school haunted house sometimes.

* * *

Hey! British accents aren’t sissy, Dean!

He also mentions the ever-present fog, which I honestly can’t decide is all natural or not, but is certainly making itself known. :P

Dean pre-empts the mistaken for gay in a few seconds by musing on how hot Daphne is as a no homo. 

WELL he says “Fred n Daphne” selecting the two most generically attractive characters without mentioning the rest of the gang, and then goes on to openly daydream about one of them and not the other, when he’s already put them into a subsection from the full cast as the ones he wants to meet with the emphasis on how he finds Daphne at least attractive? HMM.

Love that bisexual.

* * *

Sam does that thing again where he recognises all sorts of random magical sigils instantly.

Nerd.

* * *

*shivers at Tyler crashing into Sam while Maggie runs by in the background* Just… once you know she’s a ghost and then see how they emphasise how  _real_  Tyler is by having her interact with the world and stuff and we see Maggie and hear her laughing even, but Sam has absolutely no idea she’s there while Tyler distracts him and… It’s just… *brr*

Despite all my past horror-watching and reading and better judgement I still get creeped out by a well-placed ghost.

* * *

Eeey it’s the mistaken for gay. Third time’s the charm: in Bugs, Dean rolled with it because he thought it was funny and used it to tease Sam. Something Wicked, he was kind of disturbed but didn’t push it probably because it was a kid and the conversation moved past it quickly. This time, Sam is willing to roll with the antiquing cover to ask about the urn once the bed situation is made clear (i.e. yeah we’re brothers but we’re still antiquing) which seems like still halfway leaning into the mistaken for gay thing, confirming they’re “the type” and sort of quietly suggesting that part of their cover is this so the “mistake” is going to be haunting them the whole time they’re here.

* * *

“Let me guess. Antiquers?”

Yep, Dean’s feeling this one haunt him.

* * *

I will always find it hilarious with the ancient porter thunking that bag of their weapons up the stairs behind him.

* * *

Sam’s carrying all his bags still as well. Dean gets his bag taken away and manhandled by one of the people who assumed they were antiquing while Sam is carrying his own crap. I somehow feel this is symbolic.

* * *

Heh the awkward moment where Dean doesn’t tip. He’s probably still smarting about the antiquers thing since it’s clearly a code word they use around these parts.

* * *

Dean pointing at the wedding dress on the wall and saying “that’s normal. Why would anyone stay here? I’m amazed they stayed in business this long.” … This is partially where my endless amusement about him and motel rooms comes from - does he think they’re totally normal despite how bizarre they can get? He grew up in motel culture. Staying in a real hotel is immersing him in a totally different culture of the weird stuff that gets stapled up on the wall as decoration. Same thing, different world. :P He’s a fish out of water. It’s important to contextualise this with how much time he’s spent in weird motels, is what I’m saying.

Also he’s probably just harping on the mistaken for gay still.

* * *

*Dean totally is still harping on the mistaken for gay* “… Right.”

So much has been written about that little moment. So much.

Contextually in the season, Sam’s busy embracing the hunter life, but Dean spent 2 episodes griping about how done he was with the job, as well as struggling with his main function in existence (looking after Sam) being challenged so many times with the specific threat that  _he_  has to kill him, and so he’s actually in the middle of a quiet identity crisis. His relationship with Sam is in threat, he’s lost the zest for the job that ordered his life and defined him. 

If there was  _ever_  a worse time to prod him about his sexuality it would probably be now.

* * *

I mean Sam’s in a spiral too, just a very different one with outwards facing problems. Which is how we get continued insensitivity to Dean’s inward facing problems (as a continuation to my snit with Sam from last episode.)

* * *

Dean is now also in a snit with Sam for the kinda butch comment, and quickly reasserts his masculinity by pointing out Sam has a massive collection of dolls at home.

I’d say how it doesn’t work that way, but on the other hand these two work so much in narrative and emotional opposition to each other it’s entirely plausible that through the balance of the universe if Dean could just somehow make Sam the gay brother he’d be magically elevated to a position of pure manly heterosexuality.

* * *

They say you never quite realise  _just_  how tall Jared is until you meet him in person, but we have a fairly good measure of him against the average house here:

(shh I’m the short elder sibling I make these jokes like breathing you can’t blame me for leaping on an opportunity :P)

* * *

Tyler is dressed in typical formal clothes all the time, and it looks like old school uniform or something… I guess Susan just buys her clothes to fit with the hotel aesthetic? Especially if Tyler just plays with all the old toys here instead of having new things for herself. It makes it harder to tell Maggie is a ghost as well because they can be dressed the same and it’s not weird to upgrade Maggie.

Brr, I hope Tyler isn’t wearing any of Maggie’s old clothes, if she inherited all the old dolls and stuff as well.

* * *

I really like the look of this old painting:

* * *

Oops, another dead guy.

Euurgh, even though he was just some unpleasant property guy they never interacted with, Sam takes it hard. It’s pretty bad that because Sam started the episode by saying they had to get back to saving people that was probably actually a warning sign about this upcoming meltdown. He’s taking on the full responsibility of their job including ALL the deaths, even the ones they can’t prevent, which they are normally quite hardened to… He doesn’t want anyone to die and because they’re here being hunters he immediately takes it as a personal failing on his part that the guy died. Sam’s been tested so much about if he’s evil or not he’s tried to absorb the saving people thing right into his being and define himself by it, so failing to do that, even if they had no way way prevent this yet as they only just got here, hits him unexpectedly hard, as it’s a personal failure that ties right in to his probably huge dread about himself.

And possibly this is also trying to emulate Dean a little in that when Dean is upset, Dean drinks. Sam’s really not a drinker (though we saw him with a mostly drunk pint last episode while he was waiting for Ash) so he can’t quite “treat” his problems the same way as Dean does without it being horrendously obvious that Sam’s been trying to drink his problems away.

* * *

I can’t believe Sam would make fun of Dean for being short. :O

* * *

> SAM  
> That guy who hung himself. I couldn’t save him. 
> 
> DEAN  
> What are you talking about? You didn’t know, you couldn’t have done anything. 
> 
> SAM  
> That’s an excuse, Dean. I should have found a way to save him. I should have saved Ava too. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah, well, you can’t save everyone. Even you said that. 
> 
> SAM  
> No, Dean, you don’t understand, all right? The more people I save, the more I can change!
> 
> DEAN  
> Change what?
> 
> SAM  
> My destiny, Dean!

It’s interesting because over the last couple of episodes Sam’s been showing awareness of them having a destiny, but in a more neutral/positive way. I suppose Sam believing in destiny and being told this over and over is a bad thing because he’s been trying to believe they have a better destiny but if he actually takes it seriously, then the fact there’s just a terrible destiny waiting for him after all that, well, he’s in the middle of a meltdown so that speaks for itself. :P

* * *

> SAM  
> I need you to watch out for me. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah. I always do. 
> 
> SAM  
> No! No, no, no. You have to  **watch out**  for me, all right? And if I ever … turn into something that I’m not … you have to kill me.

Considering last episode Sam threatened Dean about going evil and potentially hurting him, this is awful. He’s been working through what Dean told him about John’s last words, and sort of arrived at the idea that John was right, and now, obviously he still likes Dean and wouldn’t kill him  _now_  but he’s horrified by the thought he might try.

It always comes back to brothers killing brothers. :P Like, Dean can’t just carry this one on his own - now Sam has come to the idea that this is an either/or rather than just Dean’s burden, and that he’d be the one in the wrong.

…

I’m just thinking of 10x03 where Sam can’t try stabbing demon!Dean when he’s got him with a knife to his throat and backs away. Then the endless discussion about if he was giving up and letting Dean kill him, or if he’d seen Cas who was less than a second from grabbing Dean at that point.

Normally I’m 100% on the “Sam saw Cas” boat, but in this case there’s a pretty compelling argument that all this awful backstory of Sam facing this  _exact_  thing from the other side, he made a call not to kill Dean based off the experience here.

* * *

> SAM  
> Dean! Dad told you to do it, you have to. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah, well, Dad’s an ass. He never should have said anything. I mean, you don’t do that, you don’t, you don’t lay that kind of crap on your kids.
> 
> SAM  
> No. He was right to say it! Who knows what I might become? Even now, everyone around me dies!
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah, well, I’m not dying, okay? And neither are you. Come on. Sam.

Filed under: extremely emotionally satisfying things that Dean has said.

(But also: bitter laughter at the “Not dying” thing)

Since Dean is the one in rebellion this season this is nice to hear. I think it’s the first thing he’s said that’s truly bad about John since he died (the forgotten things he said in 2x01 aside since he doesn’t remember saying them) so the first time he’s stood up to John’s memory openly? Dean chose to rebel by telling Sam what John said after John told him not to and now because of that he’s also I guess opened up the floodgates to criticise his decisions and A+ parenting decisions.

* * *

Night night Sammy.

I’m pretty sure that’s one of those “I lied” promises. Dean isn’t really put to the test with Sam until the end of season 4, and he doesn’t stop him them (well Sam completely overpowers him in the 4x21 fight) and he goes on to not-kill Sam many other times.

Going back to 10x03 though (my brain keeps jumping to it :P) demon!Dean makes a point of expressing that Sam has gone pretty dark at that point as well, and then tries to kill him, so perhaps that was a twisted expression of the promise to kill Sam.

* * *

Also the “you’re the only one who can do it” thing is a theme we come to over and over. I still think the only way to kill a Winchester and have them stay dead is if the other did it - something I think Death knew in 10x23. It’s more of a musing on narrative plot things from me (i.e. a worst case scenario ending) but still the text can be aware of that same issue, and this line makes me think it’s been in the show’s structure a long time. :P Some days I dread it because pretty much everything season after season would suggest it would be Dean killing Sam. 

Ugh.

* * *

In order to cope with Sam drinking himself stupid… Dean goes to the bar and has a drink.

* * *

I love this shot:

Red does seem to be the strongest colour in the filter they use these early seasons.

(Black and white symbolism with the salt n pepper again as well as the other colours in the scene where it’s totally black and white except for the lamps)

* * *

Isn’t there a bit in the Shining where Jack has a drink at the hotel bar with one of the ghosts serving him and even learns stuff about that hotel’s history there too? I felt vaguely like this was a reference to the scene, although not in such an obviously creepy way, especially since this guy turns out not to be a ghost.

* * *

*unexpected  _awful_  Dean stuff*

> SHERWIN  
> This is little Miss Susan, and her mother Rose. Happier days.
> 
> DEAN  
> They’re not happy now?
> 
> SHERWIN  
> Well, would you be, leaving the only home you ever knew?
> 
> DEAN  
> I don’t know. I never really knew one.

*gross sobbing*

* * *

Man, Sherwin might not be behind any of the deaths but he’s definitely angrily supporting Maggie’s efforts.

* * *

I just…

Lizzy x the colour red in old SPN. It’s a thing.

* * *

Poor Sam. :P

Dean seems a lot more cheerful now. He’s hoping Sam doesn’t remember it - along with many emotional outbursts he’s tried to find ways to cover up by begging Sam to discount what was said, he’s feeling that Sam not remembering saying anything while drunk has the same effect where everything that was said is completely off the record.

* * *

Think it’s interesting that the day before they were wandering around the hotel with no outer layers, and Dean comes in to the room to have this conversation (where was he all night? Chilling with Sherwin? I bet they randomly became besties) and he sheds his jacket, but it’s back on when they sneak off to talk to Rose. 

He needs his armour.

(I feel weird about typing Rose and Tyler for this episode.

* * *

SO many unneeded shots of all the dolls.

I like the birdcage. 

Gimme all the prison imagery. :P

Loving the use of shadow as well. This is such a beautiful episode to look at.

* * *

I MEAN, LIKE, THIS TOO:

* * *

And great spooky music to go with it as well, but I can’t screen cap that.

* * *

Rose is left sitting staring out of the window too, where it is raining. Dean was saying Sam should be staring moodily out of a window earlier in the episode.

* * *

Aaand they get quite rightfully chucked out of the hotel for considering poking her with a stick.

* * *

Maggie’s back! They’re playing old fashioned games again as well.

* * *

Aaaah Maggie’s imaginary. AAAAH. Didn’t see that coming. :P

You’re not supposed to tell kids that, though. 

* * *

Oof this is an expensive ghost. That car is wrecked.

* * *

Whiskey! Good idea.

* * *

We can have lots of tea parties for ever and ever and ever and ever.

* * *

Oh good someone smashed all the dolls.

* * *

… All but one.

I somehow feel the Maggie Doll is responsible for the doll murders, independent of everything else. :P

* * *

Brrr the pool sequence.

Maggie is the worst great aunt ever.

* * *

If she grew up in a house with a functional pool, why did Tyler never learn to swim?

* * *

Yay Sam! :D

Yay Tyler is alive! 

* * *

Maggie is actually really complex with the whole “I thought you didn’t love me any more” thing and all her motivation to keep Tyler with her because she lonely.

Rose giving her life to be with her sister is a twisted sort of foreshadowing for what’s to come at the end of the season.

… For a sort of already twisted thing. :P

* * *

Sam apologises again, because he’s still carrying everyone’s deaths, but Susan assures him it’s not his problem and he saved everything for her. (He was the one who whisked her from in front of the car as well as rescuing Tyler).

Tyler emerges wearing regular modern human clothes.

Perhaps she chose to dress like Maggie in the way kids sometimes get really into dressing up and she’s discarding that now.

* * *

Sam gets an an extra special hug Dean doesn’t get, and then Susan thinks to throw in a “both of us” for Dean’s sake. :P

Oh and then Dean lampshades all the character development stuff from this episode:

> DEAN  
> Well, you saved the mom, you saved the girl. Not a bad day. ‘Course you know, I could have saved 'em myself, but I didn’t want you to feel useless. 

Of course, Dean.

Woops, Sam remembers what he asked Dean.

And now Dean’s being beholden to the promise sober, and he can’t duck out of the conversation like it didn’t happen.

* * *

They drive off and we’re left with some nice shots of the hotel. Yeeeah.

*soaks it in one last time and enjoys a kind of happy ghost ending* I suppose as ghosts they’re a little more limited in their emotional range - like, they won’t develop out of being kids - so they might not get bored with playing and grow apart? They’re very focussed in the moment of being kids? I hope? Otherwise that’s going to be one terrible haunting if they fall out. :P

* * *

I really don’t think the thing with the dolls was necessary as the final couple of shots though. Ugh. 


	12. 2x12

Or: It’s not what it looks like.

* * *

Actually that sarcastic tagline pretty much covers the cold open.

Dean’s wearing that brown plaid again which I think is one of his longer-lasting shirts. I have often wondered about that shirt because it’s the one he’s wearing when he meets up with Sam again after Purgatory. Perhaps it’s nothing more mysterious than he’d left it behind at Rufus’s cabin where they set up from before he got sent to Purgatory.

Literally every time I see that shirt I get concerned about how they were reunited.

* * *

Omg they’ve updated their suits and added coats. 

Dean is using his +1 to hotness awarded by this to flirt with the store employee, trying to regain some equilibrium after the knock he took on their antiquing trip last episode.

It’s super effective!

* * *

> DEAN  
> Friggin’ cops. 
> 
> SAM  
> They’re just doing their job, Dean.
> 
> DEAN  
> No, they’re doing our job, only they don’t know it, so they suck at it.

It does make you wonder if there are FBI or other cops out there who put together the complicated patterns needed to spot a monster… Like, we have law enforcement involved when things get violent and stuff, but, say, someone like Victor (eee he’s showing up this episode!) who’s working on a national level and starts spotting the weirdness about multiple apparently unrelated jewellery robberies like this, and wondering if they were all a frame up since they ended in suicide each time - surely this specific pattern works case by case but eventually you build up a picture of a  _lot_  of big crimes committed for no profit by the apparently perpetrator, at which point you think there would be some interest at least in finding out if they were all blackmailed or otherwise compromised or something…

I dunno. :P

I just like the idea of someone putting together a case and  _accidentally_  arresting a shapeshifter.

I mean it would probably find a way to slip through the net somewhere in the criminal proceedings, but it would still be impressive but not completely unbelievable for someone to track such a thing without supernatural knowledge.

* * *

I wonder if there are shapeshifters who just live a quiet life and don’t turn their abilities to murder and crime.

I guess we never hear about them.

* * *

Ron!

Poor Ron, you glorious paranoid bastard.

It doesn’t pay well to be paranoid on this show. :P

Well tbh pretty much everyone gets killed, but Ron was especially unfortunate.

* * *

He’s really good at assembling weird moodboards and the thinking outside the box required to figure out the pattern. Just… *whooosh* onto the robots and aliens. Plus then the whole getting himself killed trying to prove his conspiracy thing.

This is why we need law enforcement to be a bit more on the ball with the whole monster thing, and not just isolated people like Jody and Donna.

Really, would educating the general public  _really_  be such a task?

* * *

Aw Ron. Sam killing his dreams to protect Ron from himself (or so he thinks - I guess this just spurs Ron on to prove himself right).

Dean seemed to take to Ron, at least enjoying his pop culture references and enthusiastic mania over the subject and respect to him putting it all together (and to be fair without any real education on the fact monsters can exist, Ron’s coming up with the best he can in the framework of his own knowledge).

And Sam goes all scary Fed about this and Dean actually does look like he is about to protest when he realises Sam is not about to indoctrinate Ron but shoot it all down and act like they’re all normals.

* * *

Aaand he steals all of Ron’s evidence as well since he’s helpfully done the whole case’s research for them already. I mean yeah narratively this allows them to skip a huge chunk of the faffing around, but it’s  _cold_. :P

> DEAN  
> Man, that has got to be the kicker, straight up. I mean, you tell that poor son of a bitch that – what did you say, remand the tapes that he copied? Classified evidence of an ongoing investigation? (Laughs) That’s messed up.
> 
> SAM  
> What are you, pissed at me or something?
> 
> DEAN  
> Nah, I just think it’s a little creepy how good of a Fed you are. I mean, come on, we could have at least thrown the guy a bone. He did some pretty good legwork here.

* * *

Dean sitting there drinking the same brand of beer as the motel is apparently  _sponsored_ by.

Is this symbolising the looming threat of alcoholism? It seems the season 1 standard of coffee is slipping, though they’re still not hardened drinkers.

* * *

I’m always a little suspicious of the fact that Ronald’s map was the exact same scale as the sewer layout map.

…

*goes back to check*

Okay my obsessiveness paid off: they actually did make another map. Dean uses the same pen as Ron. :P 

* * *

It is very convenient that banks are planned by sewer. “Yes, this will be the bank sewer.”

(I know I know, its probably just because banks cluster in a town but it’s still funny this is their connection)

* * *

Heh, security company boiler suits. Nice look.

Oh hey, it’s this guy!

My D&D group is full of people who won’t quit saying okie dokie and I think about this way too often as a result. 

Dean’s in a cheerful mood where he likes everyone: Ron, this guy from the bank’s security… 

“What if he’s the shifter.”

I can see why people call Sam sunshiney.

“Looks like Mr Okie Dokie is Okie Dokie”

* * *

Ron no. Ron. Go home.

Ronald Resnick stop right now.

* * *

Whhhhy do fictional characters never listen?

* * *

“This is not a robbery” he yells shooting in the middle of a bank.

“You said we shouldn’t bring guns,” says Dean, about shooting Ron??

“I didn’t know this was going to happen, Dean.” Literally the monster you are hunting is one you take down with  _silver bullets_.

*squints at Edlund*

* * *

“We’re not working for the mandroids!”

… dammit Edlund. *forgives him*

* * *

Hahaha Ron recycled Dean’s knife.

Was it a silver knife? 

… Okay I’m still squinting at Edlund.

* * *

Always amused by Sam’s eye roll about “he is  _so_  brave.” Sam’s just having the worst week and there’s no time for any drama with everything that’s going on so he’s just being  _really_  grumpy. :P

* * *

Eeew Ron lay in the shifter gunk.

* * *

Dean found a silver knife anyway, so I can stop stressing about the  _ongoing_  problem but I’m still side-eyeing their decision to show up with  _nothing_  silver when they knew it was a shapeshifter since Ron’s place. 

* * *

Aw man, Ron didn’t consider that the police would come because he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong because he had no intent to rob the bank. >.> TBH I wouldn’t be surprised if he just sort of assumed the government was always listening in on his thoughts or something and so they’d know he meant no harm in the reverse of the normal paranoia of being caught thinking bad things. :P He seems very like the sort of person who’d wear a tin hat.

* * *

Sam continues to be angry about everything. Dean is…

  


Dean is Dean.

* * *

Ron get out of the light.

* * *

“Hi Ron,” Sam awkwardly says. They’re the kids who shouldn’t be paired up for a group project.

* * *

I’m seriously having issues with how I associate such chunky plaid with later seasons Dean. 

* * *

Also what is  _on_  Sam’s t-shirt. I guess he has loads of purple shirts with things on.

* * *

Sam yells at the police too about sending a paramedic for the heart attack guy sounding all authoritative and like a rather more plausible bank robber running a hold up than Ron did. Wow Sam. This is definitely hands down a wrong side of the bed episode for him. 

* * *

*Dean and the shifter exchange menacing glares*

* * *

Aw Ron no. :(

* * *

Sam gets snuck up on by some of the hostages and he yells at them that they’re in danger and they just go.

* * *

Whyyy is Sam poking the goo? WHY? THEY ALREADY KNOW WHAT IT IS.

* * *

Heeey it’s the actual Feds. And they wear jackets which say FBI which Sam n Dean have never ever used.

… But Burt Macklin has. :P

*still low-key shipping Dean n Andy from Parks and Rec*

* * *

Victor storming in and taking control like a BAMF. :3

“There’s a monster in that bank” 

*cut to Sam rather than Dean*

Hm.

* * *

Is it just me or is Sherri made to look much taller than Dean? I suppose if she was anything up to like 5′11 and wearing heels… Maybe it’s just camera angles.

* * *

Dramatic zoooooom for Dean finding out Victor knows who he is. 

* * *

> VICTOR  
> And yes, I know about Sam too. Bonnie to your Clyde. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah, well, that part’s true,

Pfft.

I’m not curious enough to know how that gets discussed in certain circles although I suspect the ongoing characterisation of Dean “face value” Winchester doesn’t hurt that one. :P

* * *

I’m vaguely intrigued by the camera going out of focus on Dean when Victor challenges him about his dad. Sort of maybe the red mist of anger descending? Obscuring Dean’s response slightly as he’s forced to defend John? I dunno. :P

It’s interesting after last episode where Dean expressed open criticism of John we get the swings and roundabouts here for making him defend him again.

Against untrue accusations that are completely off-base since they’re coming from a non-supernatural POV but still.

Aside from possibly Sam’s tetchy mood and Dean’s occasionally over-cheerful act probably being a continuation of their surface characterisation for this gap that needs bridging between plot episodes there’s basically nothing in this episode anchoring us to the emotional or main plot arcs - it’s all action and the police drama B plot, so I’m finding barely anything to say and despite all my normal reaching around to make things connect, this episode feels adrift like it could have been plonked anywhere in the season where the previous episode left Sam n Dean on reasonably good footing with each other.

* * *

I feel really weird that the most criticism I’ve levelled at anything this season which I’ve been enjoying pretty much straight through with no complaints has been an Edlund episode, which is strange because I also actually ENJOY this episode very much for the surface level stuff and all the wackiness and drama.

* * *

Of course now Victor makes the focus Dean. I’m not sure about that cut to Sam except it fits with the overall theme of the season. Victor is massively ill-informed, of course, and so the camera warning us Sam is the monster (not that, you know, he goes all monstery this season but it’s the build up to us finding out if he’s going to or not still :P) while Victor is convinced it’s Dean along with all his other mistaken ideas is a fun way to do the contrasts between the Winchesters without them necessarily saying stuff. 

Show don’t tell. :3

* * *

Trying to extract the shifter from the vault is really awkward. 

* * *

OH WAIT NO I JUST REMEMBERED. That’s the shifter pretending to be dead, right? Oh man, SHERRI YOU POOR THING. Her freak out is real! Imagine being shown your own dead body and then these huge guys advancing on you with knives.

* * *

Yeah that looks like some pretty genuine “I’m not a shifter” fainting.

* * *

Liiittle bit worried by Dean’s “Well okay then” shrug before he goes to stab Sherri.

Good for you, Sam, questioning what the hell is going on. That was almost extremely horrible. :P

* * *

Well at least Sherri saw her weird dead clone attacking Dean so she can… have horrible nightmares about this… maybe puzzle out for herself what happened? If she doesn’t just discard all the memories in horror while getting a lifetime of therapy.

Poor Sherri.

* * *

Oh good she’s been rescued.

* * *

Sam casually taking out two armed SWAT guys.

* * *

Dean being incapacitated with a kick to the crotch after taking a moment to stop in horror and say “gross” after he pulled the shifter’s skin off its arm.

Gross.

It’s safe to say Dean’s squeamishness has actually caused a serious plot hindrance now by dragging out this fight :P (well not serious, but still) Ugh, every time his germ phobia and related easy-to-gross-out-ness comes up I remember the really grim meta I read about him growing up in skanky motels and on the road and how hard it is to feel clean all the time in those environments. Technically he probably has a really strong immune system because of all his exposure, but that doesn’t stop him being easily revolted by unclean things.

* * *

I like the fake suspense of Dean being “caught” bending over the dead shifter.

* * *

It’s convenient those SWAT outfits were for very tall guys.

* * *

Nice music. :3

* * *

Well that had to be the easiest quickest rewatch for a while since so little happened aside from me laughing at the action beats. :P I’m feeling I’ll be more like this in random MotW in later seasons so it was nice to get 3 done in one day.

… I have no hope of catching up with the proper schedule before season 4. :P


	13. 2x13

Or: we’re all aware of the irony by now.

* * *

I’ve often thought about the comparison with Cas trying to contact Jimmy here thanks to the televangelist, and angels in general showing up with shaking and light. It’s a fairly good imitation of how they work (or, well, the show borrowed from its own fake angel lore I guess :P) but either way it’s an interesting parallel.

* * *

I like how that plate falls into the lamp and takes it out. More casual lamp abuse on the show.

* * *

Sam acting as the nurse in a psychological ward, rather than the patient. A very rare turn around. :P He in particular is associated with psychiatry etc - he’s already talked out his issues once and then was the victim of bad psychiatry in Asylum. (And, while we’re on the subject of angels, an interesting character to compare to Gloria and Sam would be Anna, who starts off pretty much exactly the same as Gloria in this scene - sitting on the edge of her bed in quiet contemplation of her legitimately justified “religious psychosis”. (And Anna is a parallel to season 1 Sam to Cas being season 1 Dean))

~theeeemes~

* * *

Sam is so gentle and sympathetic in this scene compared to how angry he was all through Nightshifter. I guess part of it would be just needing to get info from her and playing a role, so I’ll have to actually wait until he’s interacting with Dean to comment on how he seems to be coping (I remember Dean being predictably off all episode even before the  ~~angel~~  ghost thing though), but what I actually think is more interesting here is how Sam’s fighting destiny all season, and he’s coming patiently to hearing Gloria talk about how what she did was God’s will. Sam gets whammied with the ghost’s will this episode and it’s thematically fascinating in relation to his story this season so don’t let me get all moody about Dean and angels to the exclusion of this arc. :P

Anyway the sympathy here is basically Sam and Gloria both at this point believe in higher powers and a destiny that has been  _specifically_  given to them. Gloria has drawn a huge comfort from enacting God’s will and (a little dodgy with the handling of a sex worker being redeemed to a cardigan-wearing Bible study group member - I suppose in-text the ghost is finding people he believes should be redeemed who are good at heart but astray (she didn’t look too cheerful in the cold open), and offering them that chance) she found some sort of peace and understanding of her place in the universe. Sam talking to her can  _see_  this - she outright says “God’s will” which is what Sam is staring down, though he doesn’t know it the books are being written and they’re into their heavily predestined phase of their lives (minute by minute rather than the broad strokes) - and I think right from this first moment he is tempted to know what it feels like, to have an uncomplicated destiny where you are sure you did the right thing. Yeah, she stabbed someone, but I’m pretty sure Sam advocates all episode for their justified stabbiness since it becomes apparent it’s targeted against real examples of gross human evil.

What I am saying is it’s totally not random the ghost picked him and not just because he was the one with the faith - he was someone who needed that mission from God.

> TELEVANGELIST  
> You don’t have to suffer, you don’t have to be lost. The lord is talking to you right now; he’s saying, you are my child and you have a purpose! You think God forgot about you? I tell you no! All you got to do is listen! Can’t you just hear those angels singing? Isn’t it beautiful? It’s time. It’s time to receive the message he’s sending. It’s time to listen to the Word of God! Do you hear the glory? I said, can you hear it? I said, can you just hear the glory? 

~theeeemes~

* * *

TBH “the word was… to kill someone?” “I helped him smite an evil man.” - Sam finds it a little strange, but when it’s clear these people were smiting evil, they actually are doing the same pattern Godstiel fell into :P Just removing the threats to humanity upfront. It’s pretty fitting with the idea of an angel actively involved in trying to sort people’s shit out.

(I mean… this is all Gamble’s writing.)

And more broadly fits with the show’s actual angels who are warriors and WOULD have the approach of stabbing evil in an uncomplicated situation. 

* * *

…

Oh my god.

No, not Dean and his magic fingers (I’m with Sam on that one).

I know we all say that Wanek is up to something magnificent but have you considered:

[Faith](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/120528596323/spn-hellatus-rewatch-1x12-or-the-moment-dean-n):

Houses of the Holy:

Wanek, bless you and bless your labradoodle.

(He has a labradoodle called Tula don’t even ask how I know this or why my brain will remember this but not where I need to be in 3 hours time or what I ate for breakfast :P)

* * *

Actually I had cake for breakfast today :P Today is a day to be slightly manic despite the pounding headache. I’ve pretty much stopped giving a warning about the content of these rewatches beside the “weird rewatching” tag but I suppose period reminders of how whacked out I am on a day-to-day basis don’t hurt. You’ll at least be more forgiving of the typos or how I wrote 2x10 consistently getting Ellen and Jo backwards the first time I posted.

* * *

The golden star bedspread also appeared in 1x14 - the first one with an encounter with one of the special children - so I think it’s horrendously important for their individual character development moments and turning points. 

For Dean, that’s 2 episodes actively battering him with faith. 

* * *

This room, though, is much skeevier with the sexy portraits on the wall (my sharpening/lightening of the screenshot for the bedsheets reveals either massive nipple tassels or like, spoons hanging from her tits in that picture in the background? WTF? :P) or these ladies glimpsed in the background:

And Dean’s lying in the middle of all of it with his eyes closed listening to a song about a heartbreaker (so say the tinny lyrics you can catch from his earphones) indulging in an disturbingly sensual pleasure (I mean the camera literally starts looking at his blissed out face on a rhythmically vibrating bed this isn’t subtle :P). He’s locked up in here to enjoy himself while Sam is off working, because of his unfortunate wanted criminal status, and I think this is getting pretty symbolic of how Dean has been wanting out all season, and now he’s actively in a position where it’s dangerous for him to go out on the job, but instead he’s ended up caged; not doing the job is more unsatisfying than he imagined because he’s not on vacation, he’s imprisoned. He’s surrounded by these visual and physical distractions. Things that are supposed to make waiting it out easier. But like Sam says later in the episode (sue me I’ve memorised this one somehow so watching moment by moment isn’t so important :P) "You’re like one of those lab rats that pushes the pleasure button instead of the food button until it dies.” Basically all this is a hollow comfort which won’t nourish him inside - not the physical stuff - and Dean’s going to get a shove towards faith this episode as well. Probably important that Dean blows through all his quarters and can’t even keep using the magic fingers as well.

Even though Sam’s the one who gets the poke from destiny related stuff in the episode, it’s Dean who’s the one who gets, I dunno, spiritually redeemed like Gloria? He is changed a little by this episode and even though he’s  _extremely_  sceptical in the opening of season 4 (outright asking in 4x02 if there’s something else it could be after Cas said what he was and refusing to take it on faith) I think the fact he has been given the steps towards it is so important.

* * *

Anyway I guess there’s like actual stuff happening in the episode?

* * *

Sam emphasises that Gloria didn’t seem crazy to him and mentions how she seems at peace. He is casually going on faith that this might actually be angels without questioning it until Dean starts rubbishing it - he’s aware of how much lore there is on them, so either he looked at the number of hits when he Googled angels ten minutes before the episode started or he’s sat down and studied them before on his own time. 

Dean is just as casually adamant that angels don’t exist, with exactly the same level of not understanding why they need to have this conversation as Sam is while thinking they’re real, which the unicorn example is good for either in the abstract if Sam is joking or (I like to think) serious (he’s probably not but shh), giving us a second example of the same pattern: Sam’s belief is angels is not just fate but also growing up assuming magical things are real because  _some_  of them are, so why not others? 

100% sure the rainbow-butt unicorn in 7x14 was pretty much to prove Dean wrong about everything in this episode.

* * *

> DEAN  
> Exactly. With our own eyes. That’s hard proof, okay? But in all this time I have never seen anything that looks like an angel. And don’t you think that if they existed that we would have crossed paths with them? Or at least know someone that crossed paths with them? 

*casually glances around at that time an angel tried to kill their mom and then a different angel possessed their dad*

But yeah this is basically what he said about believing in things in Faith over again, and of course he was proved right there because as soon as they found out it was a reaper and a spell by human people it lost all its importance. He was moved by Layla but on a personal level… Nothing in the episode actually could have suggested to him there might be a higher power.

* * *

> DEAN  
> Oh hey, Sam. I think I found it. [gesturing to the angel] It’s a sign from up above.  
> Well, I think I learned a valuable lesson: Always take down your Christmas decorations after New Year’s, or you might get filleted by a hooker from God. Ha.
> 
> SAM  
> I’m laughing on the inside.

Sam still doesn’t seem to be in a very cheerful mood, although he’s way less grumpy than last episode. :P

But yeah, this is also a demonstration in the context of the episode of Dean rejecting all this stuff specifically with the symbol Gloria was “sent” to show what he thinks of destiny/God’s will (always relevant :P).

Obviously his stance on this, just like Sam’s, has been in multiple recent episodes if you’ve been following along with my re-watch. :P

* * *

Wait a minute.

the “guilty to his deepest foundations” thing is a fucking pun. 

This show and puns. >.>

* * *

Hey more jars in a cellar. *looming presence of Satan in the background*

* * *

Omg, and I was just joking but Dean just stood next to a pitchfork.

* * *

Is it tinhatting Lucifer’s arrival if you  _know_  he’s 3 seasons away down the line? :P

* * *

Okay so the collection of garden tools was so they could grab a shovel to dig up the unfortunate dead girl, BUT I have now helplessly associated Lucifer with jars on this show.

* * *

> DEAN  
> Yeah, well, whatever spoke to Gloria about this knew what it was talking about, I’ll give you that.

Still not winning Dean over that easily. :P

* * *

The  ~~angel~~  ghost is  _really_  good at the room shaking thing.

I’d say it’s symbolic that the  ~~angel~~  ghost smashes all his alcohol as part of redeeming him but what the fuck did Gloria’s lamp’s death have to do with that? Stop killing lamps for cheap thrills, show. >:(

* * *

The next victim also had Christmas decorations up still, so technically Dean’s working hypothesis isn’t  _wrong_  in the sense that science would not be able to discard the evidence. 

* * *

Lizzy’s ongoing love of the colour red on this show:

Also a really fantastic picture of Dean: he’s trapped in the motel again and we’re seeing him through the mirror, which has another next to it giving a sort of fractured reflection of the room as a whole, and since Dean is in just one of them, makes him look awfully imprisoned.

And then the fact he’s stooped moodily over the police scanner holding it up against his face like he’s just  _tired_.

He’s technically had nothing happen to him to actively draw him back into full participation in hunting and doing the family business aside from Sam’s emotional blackmail that he had to keep on following Sam around to protect him. Nothing to suggest he’s in a different place from his clearly suicidal-feeling giving up in Croatoan or desperately trying to get them to stop and take a vacation in 2x10.

So, just Dean quietly imploding in the background, nothing to see here, move along.

*he looks tragically at the magic fingers* Yeah, we’ve been over this, Dean. It’s not real love if you pay it to make you feel good. :P

Wow, he sounds actually kinda frantic when Sam comes in and demands to know if Sam brought quarters.

Yeah I am aware I’m still typing in the same division of this post as my thoughts on Dean’s tragic implosion: this is all a part of it, I haven’t forgotten in my migraine-y haze to separate out my thoughts properly.

OH MAN that post it note on the mirror? The name and address of the “local drunk” that did the most recent killing. Zach’s name was literally over Dean’s reflection as a hopeless directionless drunk who suddenly found a mission to kill some evil. 

* * *

I like the breaking and entering music.

* * *

How did Sam guess that guy’s password?

…

Statistically by typing in “password”

* * *

> DEAN  
> Huh. Well, I guess if you’re gonna stab someone, good timing. I don’t know, man, this is weird, you know? I mean, sure, some spirits are out for vengeance, but this one’s almost like a do-gooder, you know? Like, like a –
> 
> SAM  
> Avenging angel?

Sam’s eye roll is amazing.

Dean’s getting closer.

Honestly the delight of this episode is watching him edge up to the line.

* * *

Sam says they’re not connected, and Dean immediately finds the connection.

Our Lady of the Angels. Yep yep. I am with Dean on that being an  _of course_.

I mean they presumably picked it for the episode so he’s just pointing out the fact the writers are making fun of him for not believing in angels, which is all sorts of hilarious given the nature of this show.

* * *

… More hilarious if you could complete the circle all the way but Sera survived the angel massacre in The French Mistake so. :P

* * *

Is this the church they reuse? 

Time for some sketchy angel lore!

> FR. REYNOLDS  
> Yes. Misguided souls, to think that God’s messenger would appear and incite people to murder. It’s tragic. 

On the one hand, angels are pretty murdery themselves, and some get murdery for morality reasons (e.g. setting aide Cas, Gabriel’s trickster years were all about punishing bad guys in his own amusing way), so none of this is technically weird for angels if you know all the details about the victims being perverts, but then this is also a nice little comment that goes with 99 Problems where Lea the false prophet is getting people to murder because angels said so. 

And then we get their “well if we’re having angels then they should be like this” thing:

> FR. REYNOLDS  
> That’s right. The archangel Michael, with the flaming sword. The fighter of demons. Holy force against evil.
> 
> SAM  
> So they’re not really the Hallmark card version that everybody thinks? They’re fierce, right? Vigilant?
> 
> FR. REYNOLDS  
> Well, I like to think of them as more loving than wrathful. But, uh, yes, a lot of Scripture paints angels as God’s warriors. “An angel of the Lord appeared to them, the glory of the Lord shone down upon them, and they were terrified.”

Sam busy trying to prove to Dean it might be an angel by leaning on this description.

Honestly, I hear different things about if they were really aware of everything they were going to write over the next few years of the show (the standard line about Kripke at least is he planned everything, but angels were a surprise) the little bit about Michael still works as a parallel in the here and now even if the link to Dean is possibly just a brilliant quirk of the show’s history. Obviously they fight demons, and, well, are warriors themselves. The parallel when Michael actually comes along isn’t forced. In the here and now, Dean’s enthusiasm for the job is at an all time low he didn’t even hit in season 10 since he still felt he  _had_  to keep going if only for the ease of finding things to safely kill. Just like Sam’s dragging him through hunting he’s dragging him through this case trying to make him believe it’s angels. Basically, pointing out Michael to him (that unknown to them is Dean’s literal destiny, so this works much better with that way where you dump author intent and just go with what the text suggests as a whole :P) and using this as a jumping off point to get some stuff about angels that is inspiring, suggestive of their own job, indicative of their destiny, and fits with the pattern of the killings, all bundled up to try and encourage Dean along. The fact it’s Michael and even this one line about him ties him to the job and so on is just really impressive given where Dean is at the moment, and how his unexplained will of God moment at the end of the episode hits him.

I’d almost venture Michael (given he wasn’t actually doing anything in canon until season 5 :P) was keeping a wary eye on his vessel and since it would be no big deal to encourage him like that, was the one to make the thing happen at the end of the episode.

(I am pretty sure the episode after this is Born under a Bad Sign so it’s useless to use this episode to gauge Dean’s ongoing engagement in the job as a result of the end of this episode, since that one is completely compulsory action on Dean’s part, no two ways about it.)

* * *

> FR. REYNOLDS  
> Ever since he died I’ve been praying my heart out. 
> 
> SAM  
> For what?
> 
> FR. REYNOLDS  
> For deliverance. From the violence and the bloodshed around here. We could use a little divine intervention, I s'pose.

In a church full of angels the guy is praying for deliverance… Yeah, I can see how this got onto their radar. :P Especially if they’re keeping a close eye on what the boys are up to.

(As someone pointed out to me around the time I was watching Bugs, since there’s suddenly an active prophet churning out gospels and the angels know who he is and presumably what he’s up to, they clearly have  _someone_  on staff reading all the books :P Depending how up to date they were, the angels could easily be aware of each story pretty much as it’s happening without even bothering to sit on a cloud directly above the Winchesters)

* * *

> DEAN  
> Devoted priest dies a violent death? That’s vengeful spirit material right there.
> 
> SAM  
> Then again, Father Reynolds started praying for God’s help about two months ago, right? Right about the time all this started happening?

~polysemy~ :P Two different ways to read the narrative based on their own personal experience and bias. And in the end, they were both right in their own way, at least insofar as something intervened at the end beyond Father Gregory’s power.

* * *

*Sam has a near miss with a religious experience*

Poor Sam. Meeting real angels for the first time is much more of a bummer than this.

* * *

“I saw an angel”

*Dean’s emergency response is alcohol*

* * *

> SAM  
> It just, it appeared before me and I just, this feeling washed over me, you know? Like, like peace. Like grace. 
> 
> […]
> 
> DEAN  
> Okay, let me guess. You were personally chosen to smite some sinner. You’ve just got to wait for some divine bat signal, is that it?  
>   
> SAM  
> Yeah, actually. 

Just, further to my ramblings about what Sam gets out of this and why the angel went after him from the start of this rewatch.

* * *

> SAM  
> Dean, the angel hasn’t been wrong yet! Someone’s going to do something awful, and I can stop it!
> 
> DEAN  
> You know, you’re supposed to be bad too, maybe, maybe I should just stop you right now. 
> 
> SAM  
> You know what, Dean? I don’t understand! Why can’t you even consider the possibility?
> 
> DEAN  
> What, that this is an angel?
> 
> SAM  
> Yes! Maybe we’re hunting an angel here, and we should stop! Maybe this is God’s will!

Dean vs destiny, Sam leaning into it, once again.

TBH I know we talk about Team Free Will or whatever, but Sam always leans into destiny, e.g. actually saying yes to Lucifer exactly like he was supposed to, where he was supposed to, when he was supposed to. Yeah, it was to fight him and he subverted the  _end_  result, but his upfront actions? (Season 4 likewise was all about him fulfilling a dark destiny where he went along every step of the way as he was supposed to.)

Dean is the one who actively combats it or refuses to go along the whole time, or subverts what he’s supposed to do every step of the way (i.e. not saying yes to Michael ever; Cain’s list).

Like… I never really thought about it this way because Sam’s always chucked in with Team Free Will but he actually sucks at not doing destiny stuff.

Here in this episode anyway he takes on a destiny to kill this guy because it’s god’s will and Dean makes him not do it, so he doesn’t actually go along with it, but the mere fact he was the one booped on the nose and granted the destiny rather than Dean…

* * *

> DEAN  
> Okay, all right. You know what? I get it. You’ve got faith. That’s — hey, good for you. I’m sure it makes things easier.   
> I’ll tell you who else had faith like that — Mom. She used to tell me when she tucked me in that angels were watching over us. In fact, that was the last thing she ever said to me. 
> 
> SAM  
> You never told me that.
> 
> DEAN  
> Well, what’s to tell? She was wrong. There was nothing protecting her. There’s no higher power, there’s no God. I mean, there’s just chaos, and violence, and random unpredictable evil that comes out of nowhere, and rips you to shreds. You want me to believe in this stuff? I’m going to need to see some hard proof. You got any?

Thinking of shreds: my heart.

* * *

Haha, brand new grave that was from 2007. *feels so old*

* * *

> DEAN  
> It’s wormwood. Plant associated with the dead; specifically the ones that are not at rest. I don’t see it growing anywhere else, except over the murdered priest’s marker. It’s him, Sam. 
> 
> SAM  
> Maybe.
> 
> DEAN  
> Maybe?

TBH now I’ve joked about it being a metaphor for polysemy this is just really amusing me as the wearisome discussions about what does and doesn’t exist in the text. :P

* * *

Except we can’t literally summon the spirit of Dean’s bisexuality.

> DEAN  
> We’ll summon Gregory’s spirit.
> 
> SAM  
> What? Here? In the church?
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah. Yeah, we just need a few odds and ends, and that, uh, séance ritual in Dad’s journal.
> 
> SAM  
> Oh, a séance, great. Hope Whoopi’s available.

Sam has become the snarky pop culture one! Things really are bad. :P

I am actually quite enjoying miserable bastard season 2 Sam possibly because him slipping into Dean patterns is making him into what I love in Dean. 

* * *

> DEAN  
> Seriously. If Father Gregory’s spirit is around, a séance will bring him right to us. If it’s him, then we’ll put him to rest. 
> 
> SAM  
> But if it’s an angel, it won’t show. Nothin’ll happen.
> 
> DEAN  
> Exactly. That’s one of the perks of the job, Sam: we don’t have to operate on faith. We can know for sure. Don’t you wanna know for sure?

This is super fascinating because you can find out it’s an easy to understand stand surface reading spirit as evidenced by the overt text (nearby dead priest, wormwood on the grave) by proof of something appearing, but you can prove it’s an angel only in the angel’s absence: there is nothing to see there and you’re still taking it on faith it’s an angel only by the fact an angel fits the narrative and that’s what people have interpreted their encounter as.

And in the end they make the ghost (surface reading) appear, but the angel, while absent, still fits into the narrative and offers the more emotionally satisfying ending by the narrative continuing to suggest an angel despite the apparent proof of the surface reading.

* * *

I suppose all the victims had a surface level appearance of nice guys - like this dude getting flowers for his girlfriend and baffling Dean following them - but then it turns out they have awful stuff, uh, in their foundations.

* * *

Sam’s excuse about doing the seance is hilarious. You nerd. “It’s based on early Christian rites if that helps.”

No, Sam. It doesn’t.

* * *

I’ve always wondered from this episode if human souls can become angels like demons are people… They seem pretty different by now with canon lore, but for a while I was seriously considering Father Gregory was an example of how it might happen.

* * *

> FR. GREGORY  
> Those innocent people are being offered redemption. Some people need redemption. Don’t they, Sam? 

And Sam sort of looks away. Yeah, being offered an alternate destiny is massively appealing to him right now after what Dean told him. 

* * *

> FR. REYNOLDS  
> How can you call this redemption?
> 
> FR. GREGORY  
> You can’t understand it now. But the rules of man and the rules of God are two very different things.

Well that’s something that holds true for the entire show. :P

* * *

They call it vengeance, which is interesting, because this seems like an extremely well-considered episode for “lol lol what if there was a vengeful ghost but it was using  _other people_  to enact vengeace!?!”

… Okay no the thematic stuff probably came first in this instance.

* * *

*Dean satisfactorily punching the would-be rapist*

* * *

It is good that Father Gregory goes quietly and lets the other priest do his last rites, even though it’s really sad - it’s a nice credit to his character that he doesn’t lash out and become a violent ghost as he may have done in later seasons :P Which it’s also interesting that the religious rules are so powerful here that doing that last rite actually is the way to put him to rest, and it’s implied the fact it wasn’t done at his death is exactly why he came back as a ghost at all, not particularly the violence of his death.

Of course you could say that it’s all a belief thing and because he died when he believed he would not be at rest without his last rites he came back, and because he believes the last rites will move him on, they do. We see a few ghosts move on because they’re satisfied emotionally this season.

* * *

Father Reynolds invokes Raphael, and calls him Master of the Air. This is the archangel which appeared with lightning wings. :3 That makes Michael fire, obviously, based on his immolation of Anna, Lucifer water (he burns cold and creates ice in that scene where he says about that) and I guess Gabriel is associated with Earth - he’s not associated with dirt so much as being down here literally  _on_  Earth with the mud monkeys :P lol.

* * *

*cut back to stunt driving*

~drama~

* * *

*act of God*

* * *

Hardcore smiting there. Whoever did it should be super proud of themselves. :P

* * *

Heh, Dean offers a drink for “it wasn’t an angel” as well. The flask is very all-purpose.

Has it shown up before? I was joking about Nightshifter being a sign of impending alcoholism.

* * *

*direct hit to the heart* “Maybe I could be saved.”

Sam talking about averting his destiny because he knows how much his sucks without even knowing what it is. *sobs*

Never been able to tell if Dean is leading him on in a great spiritual dramatic moment brother troll to let Sam express all this existential angst first before being like SIKE I SAW GOD’S WILL, or if he’s just having trouble expressing that his own internal belief was challenged and in a scary, awe-inspiring but ultimately terrifying way.

… I am completely unable to convince myself he let Sam unload for so long for any reason but the former. :P

* * *

… Is Knocking on Heaven’s Door playing in the background?

It’s playing in the background. Pfft.

* * *

Well that was fun and depressing and my head hurts.


	14. 2x14

Or: #Meg cw

…

that is both for the inevitable discussion of stuff she does in this episode, and a pun about Sam’s state this episode.

* * *

Pls don’t unfollow.

* * *

Oh good we’re back to having the montage at the start. It freaked me out not to have one for Houses of the Holy.

Not that it really does anything special except remind us of the ongoing plot since we’ve been disconnected for 2 episodes. Ominous final note with it being Sam yelling at Dean that he might just have to waste him if he doesn’t watch out.

* * *

“I swear it’s like looking for my dad all over again.”

*quiet sobbing about Dean being forced into this traumatic mindset again*

* * *

*louder sobbing as I remember how much time I wasted typing about Dean going to grab Sam to help him find John because he didn’t want to be alone and how Dean’s loneliness was a sneaky focus of the opening of the show and how Dean is now all alone and can’t go grab Sam to help him look for Sam*

* * *

There’s some brutal editing with flashes here and I had to go get a drink of water. Ugh.

*returns to edit half an episode worth of notes the next morning after giving up halfway through the episode because this choppy editing actually sent me to bed early by inducing a migraine* This opening phonecall (before the flashes) has the honour of being added to a very select list of scenes I can think of that are edited like this - I was keeping an eye out for them last summer in my rewatch, but I guess I missed this one because it was so early. With the choppy editing the dialogue runs over or into the next shot, giving us a continues stream of talking without any pauses, despite a lot of cuts implying a lot of pauses. As far as I recall the other scenes I noticed using this technique were: Dean talking to John’s grave in 2x20, Jimmy yelling at Cas before the warehouse bit in 4x20, and Cas talking to God at the very end of 6x20.

Just… for the context of how awful the emotional plea is here when Dean is trying to find Sam: in all these instances the person they’re talking to (including Ellen in this one who is actually on the line for once) is omitted for being useless and absent to increase their helplessness. 

* * *

So it’s demon!Meg [hereafter Meg because the whole episode is dedicated to her and I just can’t type it but I refuse to call her Meg without first acknowledging she stole the name from Meg Masters] the whole time, and only pretending to be back in control of Sam? (I think he says at the end he doesn’t remember  _any_  of this?) Or Meg has burrowed down a little to let Sam take forefront for a while?

I think that’s a question the show never truly answers?

* * *

Oh god the editing is too choppy I can barely look at the screen. STOP PANICKING, DEAN.

* * *

Ahaha I just recently reblogged this: <http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/122617580718/sugarless5-doct-you-see-her-eyes-are-open>

and Sam’s like 

> DEAN  
> (kneeling beside him)  
> Are you bleeding?  
> SAM  
> I tried to wash it off.  
> DEAN  
> (seeing SAM’S shirt covered in blood; he gropes at it, searching for a wound.)  
> Oh my god.   
> SAM  
> I don’t think it’s my blood.

It’s a pale coloured shirt but not the awful one.

Also Sam is presumably in a really bad way if he can’t get blood off clothes given their occupation… Like, he’s in total emotional shut down if he can’t do one of their more boring chores. Much more likely this is Meg inflicting some more shock value on Dean. :P 

(I’m assuming this because the partition of the motel suggests Sam is bait)

* * *

This is like Dude Where’s My Car but with murder and demons instead of drunken shenanigans.

* * *

The light is caged because of course it is and this isn’t symbolic about Sam or anything.

Reversal of last episode where Dean was imprisoned. (By society, while Sam within his own body.)

* * *

Sam immediately jumps to this being what John warned Dean about because obviously they are both freaking out about it all the time, Dean since the start of the season and Sam since Dean cracked and told him.

Allowing Sam to be Sam and not Meg right now, this is some pretty excellent emotional torture from her, so I can allow it to be Sam for now.

* * *

Dean likes following clues. It’s a puzzle! Detective!Dean is my jam.

Sam’s put the brown jacket back on - I guess it didn’t get any blood on.

* * *

Dean there is nothing shameful in stealing a Beetle. Just because you like bigger cars.

* * *

They pull up at a gas station called “Tasty Express” and honestly I am pretty amused but I am not sure how I would feel in a world where Cas worked at one of these instead of a Gas n Sip. Like, given my love of 9x06 I would have typed Tasty Express innumerable times. And that fact makes me uncomfortable because I don’t like the word choice in the name. :P

* * *

Further to the reversal from last episode, Sam was mostly in control of the case there - because Dean was on lock down so he did more of the outdoors stuff. This time it’s Dean who has to tell Sam to go wait in the car because the gas station guy will phone the police if he stays, and Sam who’d be in trouble (first) with the law if they catch up to him since he’s just randomly murdering people on his week off. 

* * *

TBH I know smoking is supposedly a sign of moral degeneration or something but is there actually any proof they’re not including it just as a subtle pun on the fact Sam is full of demon smoke?

* * *

“Because smoking? Throwing bottles at people? That sounds more like me than you.”

Things we never seen Dean do in canon, BUT.

Hey, remember in… Scarecrow? maybe? where I decided Dean had been smoking and tried to quit/sneak smoke breaks away from Sam? 

I don’t think he would smoke in the car EVER though (that sounds more like grounds for stabbing someone) so he probably mostly did it to look cool in bars and stuff.

* * *

Honestly all this discussion of Sam being out of character and they STILL haven’t contemplated that he was possessed. I know they’re all fearing the internal evil coming to the surface rather than an external evil controlling him, but surely they’d run through some options and they have  _met_  demons before.

* * *

Considering Meg is Azazel’s daughter and Sam is massively in favour with Yellow Eyes (to the point where he was picked on for Croatoan and potentially saved by Ava on Azazel’s influence the following episode) the fact Meg is trashing Sam’s life to the point of despair seems more like a rebellion. She is taking personal revenge against Sam n Dean - it’s very cruelly calculated to destroy them emotionally based on their progress through the main plot, but it’s still for her own fun and not towards any end goal. Of course if Sam got arrested (hehe he does this season :P) and was in prison at the time the Hunger Games started, Azazel would just yoink him out of prison anyway, but it seems like to Azazel anyway Sam best serves him by being actively out there hunting and staying sharp.

…

I wonder if Sam would have got a demonic prison break? :P

* * *

Jeeesus, Meg trashed that place.

*judgemental deer head watches them as they find the dead hunter*

That deer head is in a lot of episodes apparently. 

* * *

*tries to be extremely emotional and Sam and Dean seeing Meg killing the guy but it cut to the letter Sam was reading before I thought to pause it and the hunter’s kid is writing to him to thank him for  _waterproof pyjamas_.* I assume they’re on a camping trip or something but it also has comments about school being really busy and such so I can’t tell what this is about. The letter is mostly blurry, probably because we aren’t actually meant to read it. But it disturbs me that that’s the most visible line.

* * *

*Dean busy cleaning up a crime scene for his brother*

He might be panicking but whether Sam actually is evil or not he knows what to do in a situation like this.

* * *

I can’t believe they go back to the motel where he was sitting there covered in blood when they found him. This seems like a bad idea in terms of covering your tracks.

* * *

> SAM  
> For the last few weeks I’ve been having … I’ve been having these feelings. 
> 
> DEAN  
> What feelings?
> 
> SAM  
> Rage. Hate. And I can’t stop it. It just gets worse. Day by day, it gets worse.

Aka Lizzy’s chronicling of Sam’s grumpy downward spiral in Nightshifter and Houses of the Holy? He seemed to have a better lid on it last episode compared to how blunt and shouty he was in Nightshifter, but it sounds like he recognised it was happening after a time and started trying to force it down… Probably cue the transition from shouty to sarcastic as he struggled to keep a lid on his inner monologue for once, per the moderately cracky but very accessible speculation soulless!Sam was all Sam’s sassy inner monologue that his soul works overtime to shut up. :P

* * *

“I didn’t want to scare you.” “Well bang up job on that.”

*thinks back to how this episode started after the recap line of Sam yelling that thing about how if Dean wasn’t careful he’d  _have_  to kill Sam*

* * *

But Sam’s in such a depressed puppy state about this that, yeah, he can’t remember doing it, but it’s a good argument for him being way too good at heart and not evil. :P He cares too much.

* * *

> SAM  
> Dean, the yellow-eyed demon, you know he has plans for me. And we both know that he’s turned other children into killers before, too.
> 
> DEAN  
> No one can control you but you. 
> 
> SAM  
> It sure doesn’t seem like that, Dean, it feels like no matter what I do, slowly but surely I’m, I’m just becoming… 
> 
> DEAN  
> What?
> 
> SAM  
> Who I’m meant to be. I mean, you said it once yourself, Dean. I gotta face up to who I am.
> 
> DEAN  
> I didn’t mean this!

Ongoing Sam n Dean vs fate. Sam’s fear, I guess, is of his inherent feeing of being evil or unclean or whatever he was talking about in season 8; in the here and now without that insight it’s still deeply gloomy given the context he knows about the other special children and how many are prone towards being killers. It’s easy to see himself falling into that pattern, even if it hasn’t happened, and the anger issues are mostly a natural part of Sam’s character that just gets exacerbated by demonic influence.

Dean can see all that (but not how Sam really feels about himself inside, if this is Sam’s feeling expressed by Meg/Sam still with us for a little while yet - can’t tell if him confessing inner stuff like the rage which seems to tally up with non-possessed Sam unless he really was possessed for months :P or would be something Meg could spill to upset Dean even more) and I guess from this feels like if you have the choice and don’t  _want_  to be evil and a killer, why would you even be scared of it happening when you want the choice not to?

(Which is extra super tragic given eventually the world found a way to take Dean’s violence and growing numbness towards death and turn it from monsters to people. In light of this, the way the Mark turns him into a killer is almost unfairly cruel to his character principles, as it was a slow decent of bad decisions and impulses and character degradation, not any overt control, and the fate only got laid on him after he made the choice to take it)

* * *

> SAM  
> Dean, you promised him. You promised me. 
> 
> DEAN  
> No. Listen to me. We’re gonna figure this out. Okay? I mean, there’s gotta be a way, right?
> 
> SAM  
> Yeah there is.   
> (SAM takes a handgun from his duffel, shoves it at DEAN)  
> I don’t wanna hurt anyone else. I don’t wanna hurt you. 
> 
> DEAN looks down, at the gun SAM is handing him.  
> You won’t. Whatever this is, you can fight it. 
> 
> SAM  
> No. I can’t. Not forever. Here, you gotta do it.

Hm. Since my brain’s now jumped to the deep end of season 10, this is a weird not-quite-reversal of 10x23 - Sam is the one on an apparent downwards slide, but he’s the one on the table to be killed again in 10x23, not Dean, but in both cases Dean is handed a weapon and told that he’s the one who’s got to do it.

I have mentioned how I muse a lot on how the permanent character death I could see as the worst case scenario ending of the show would be Dean killing Sam, and it’s stuff like this endlessly happening which helps. :P It’s always Dean put in this position with Sam, even when Dean is the one, in season 10, who should have been asking Sam to kill him (he asked Cas instead, which in the horrific eventuality of an everyone-dies ending, I’d probably agree would be, again, the emotionally fitting permanent character death that makes sense).

Of course this sort of speculation makes me want to rip my heart out and I generally never feel like, since season 6 onwards, the show has ever been written as major character death tragedy. It just inherited all these tropes and patterns from seasons 1-5 when it WAS a major character death tragedy that got averted at the last moment.

* * *

> DEAN  
> You know, I’ve tried so hard to keep you safe. 
> 
> SAM  
> I know. 
> 
> DEAN shakes his head no.   
> I can’t. I’d rather die. 
> 
> DEAN drops the gun on the bed and shoulders past SAM.

Obviously I don’t mean in these horrible end scenarios that it would come easily or I think on your average day of the week Dean would just turn around and kill Sam. :P It’s just that he’s the one with all this narrative of  _not_  killing Sam and the fact that the focus is on if he will or will not kill Sam so often that it is a question that gets asked rather than a blank space where no one even thinks about it.

And so here, even after a season of being forced to think constantly about having to kill Sam and here being begged to do it and seeing all this evidence that Sam went dark and killed a hunter, Dean can’t do it.

Which I guess is all part of Meg’s torture of him. (She learned from the best.)

I am guessing Sam lost control again some point in this conversation before the challenge to kill him (you’ll notice me not analysing any motivation on his part there :P), if he was not completely gone the entire time and Meg was just acting distressed all along. I like to think we actually had Sam at least up until getting to the hunter’s house and seeing the body etc since if Meg is doing her job right that’s emotionally tormenting him a little more along the way.

* * *

Her line on the way out, “You’ll live to regret this” definitely suggests that this is all just elaborate torture. I feel kind of bad for Sam making the  _entire_  episode about Dean’s torment though with Sam completely in the backseat. I feel at the end he says he barely remembers any of it from start to finish though, so perhaps this is a Dean-centric episode and everything Sam says is calculated from Meg.

* * *

There’s a line of thought I’ve seen others write about that somehow or other the money Dean uses to pay for the room/pay off the motel manager to use the computer being illicitly got from the situation at hand with the skeevy dude and sex worker. Like, that Dean joined in for more cash or something. I’m honestly not sure but the situation on hand is pretty mysterious and the manager just ends up with a big wad of cash to count without any shown moment of Dean forking it out or complaining about having to do so, i.e. they skipped a mere second of footage in order to make the situation more ambiguous, and the notes are clean and new and there are a lot of them. 

While we’re on the subject of money I saw another meta more recently (so I’m actually pausing to go find it since I know where to look :P) which was deeply Sam-negative so I never rebagled it but was related to Sam n Dean and money in this part of the season. 

[http://welcome–to–awkwardville.tumblr.com/post/122363701897/i-was-really-struck-by-that-scene-in-bloody-mary](http://welcome--to--awkwardville.tumblr.com/post/122363701897/i-was-really-struck-by-that-scene-in-bloody-mary)

Basically talking about how Dean has the money in this relationship and is the one who earns it and Sam’s use of the money is all basically spending money that is I dunno an allowance from Dean (one more way Dean’s the parent?). 

I don’t I totally agree Sam never does anything - perhaps as this meta notes Sam’s not usually  _shown_  doing the thing on screen for character purposes (once some time in season 4 we see him start to hustle pool while Dean is around and also, notably if it is for character preservation purposes, when he’s already on a dark arc and Ruby is there) but he does seem to be aware of how to do these things and there are a lot of gaps with free time (season 1, 2 and 3 at least all take place pretty much exactly over a year each - despite the lack of Christmas episodes it’s easy to assume each episode is roughly airing around the time it happens), so a more moderate view would be Dean may be shown doing the bulk of the work and more often be the one shown saying he earned hard cash and at least this part of the show do the credit card thing (obviously season 10 has Sam endorsing credit card fraud and passing that skill on to minors :P) but Sam presumably helps out too: it is more about showing the power dynamic in the relationship. 

In this episode’s case, Sam has proven to be expensive to Dean, with him having to pay up for Meg’s thievery in the gas station and now pay money for the motel room/to track Sam down. Dean is taking on a financial burden for Sam in a couple of different ways here, neither of which, obviously since it’s all Meg’s fault, Sam  _caused_  but it shows Dean in this position where, especially in the second case where he talks to the phone company about Sam being his son, not his brother, in order to track him, Dean is the responsible adult in the position of power to Sam, and with that comes financial responsibility for his actions. He even, while on the phone, calls him “Sammy” rather than Sam, using his normal nickname which has a whole bundle of not always positive connotations, to imply Sam’s youth and vulnerability.

Considering the last conversation they/Meg n Dean had was about Dean’s actual responsibility for Sam’s life and so on, and how Dean can’t kill Sam because of that (and how he has been looking out for him and become his parent figure etc) this all kind of ties in thematically.

(Interesting also to compare to Dean’s need for quarters from Sam to enable his habit last episode as well, considering they seem to be reverses of each other in the power dynamic in subtle ways.)

* * *

*gets completely distracted by Jo and how menacing Meg!Sam is*

Like, he just walks out of the shadows, and she’s cautious because of how they parted and because he’s tracked her down (and isn’t bursting in Winchester style bleeding and like ‘need heeeeelp’ but just asking for a drink), but she’s  _not cautious enough_. *claws at the table in despair*

* * *

> ~~SAM~~  MEG  
> Yeah. Um … Look, I know how you feel about my dad. And I can’t say I blame you. He was obsessed – consumed with hunting. And he didn’t care who got caught in the cross-fire. And I guess that included your dad. But that was my father. That’s not me. 

So we’re starting to get more of the trickle of John-negative comments except in this case it’s dredging up stuff from Sam and having Meg say it while he’s possessed… We’re not  _quuuiiite_ at the part where they’ll talk openly? :P (Well we already had Dean say John’s final words were dumb in Playthings but I don’t think Sam has expressed any negativity since he died? He’s been trying to be John instead, which means hearing John’s last words were just that much more awful. 

Also interesting that Sam falls into these John patterns of revenge and are paralleled as working on the same lines in more ways than Dean is.

* * *

Sam’s got menacing eyes all through this but only starts to not sound like Sam more when he starts making fun of Jo for liking Dean. Well, getting more openly asshole-ish about it. He  _almost_  starts the conversation sympathetic to lure her in.

* * *

Ugh, Meg’s starting to be openly creepy. 

… Aaand there’s the good old Meg sexual assault.

Poor Jo. :( She still thinks it’s Sam - at least for this part - so this has got to be majorly traumatic given he was in a place of reasonable trust. Yeah, they didn’t interact so much as Jo n Dean but still. I can’t remember how many more appearances Jo has after this but it feels like this is one of the last times we see her and tbh FAIR ENOUGH to keep a wide berth even if by the end she knows it was Meg and not Sam himself. No one should be forced to spend time with someone who would remind you like that - I suppose if we don’t really see her until season 5 then between the long stretch of time and the urgency of the situations it would be more bearable to meet again.

* * *

Oh man, that was a creepy music transition. Some line about “you slip into unconsciousness”… is there ever a good reason to write that lyric? I can’t make out the rest as that’s the only one played loudly before dialogue but however the song actually goes it was one hell of a line to use to introduce us to this scene.

* * *

Bleeeh Meg hurting Jo with the details of Bill’s death. Is this meant to illustrate mostly to the audience about John? (Like I’m not sure how much we’re supposed to believe about what Meg says, but Jo’s story must be at least somewhat the truth as it’s awful but if John was the only one who knew what happened and fessed up the full details to Ellen the fact he took responsibility for his mistake does at least suggest Jo’s version is close to what happened. I dunno, it’s not like the first story is exactly primed to make you love John, but the second version Meg tells is  _so_  bad it makes you nervous to trust it’s the full story, because it’s  _so_  bad.

And yet demons never seem to lie on this show when it comes to emotional truths; they prefer how the horror of what humanity does and thinks can affect other people. Never lie when there’s a horrible dark secret to unearth.

* * *

OH MAN the line about Bill holding his insides in his hands. NO. NOT COOL.

*holds Jo close* You poor child. :’(

* * *

Oh,  _now_  Dean’s figured out it’s a demon. So his not shooting Sam at this point in inadmissible as evidence regarding character stuff like this: 

> ~~SAM~~  MEG  
> What the hell’s wrong with you, Dean? Are you that scared of being alone that you’d rather let Jo die? 

I mean Dean wouldn’t have shot Sam but the point is he at least had a hunch by now that Meg would shake it off as a demon and then Sam would die later as Sam if he did, so he wasn’t going to do it until he’d checked with holy water. 

On the OTHER hand it’s one of those things where even if in context it’s not that, it’s the fact that this is asked at all, and is an interpretation of his character which plays through in other instances. Dean  _will_  endanger people to keep Sam alive; he already knows that from shooting the meatsuit of that guy (uh to kill Meg’s brother). And it carries on being a thing very obviously through the show.

* * *

Aaugh Jo yelling after Dean “He was possessed?!” ( _She thought Sam actually was capable of doing this and had no reason not to think it until the holy water happened aaargh_ ) and Dean just legging it after Meg. He may prioritise Sam but seriously, he could have at least checked Jo was okay. :( She has a huge egg on her forehead from where she hit the counter when Meg knocked her out. :(

* * *

Buuut Dean is still going after Meg armed with a regular gun.

> DEAN  
> So who are you?
> 
> ~~SAM~~  MEG  
> I got lots of names.

… Well that’s helpful. 

At least Meg cops to not actually being called Meg. :P She’s probably been showing up around the world fucking shit up for centuries and using whatever name suits her there.

This actually parallels [Charlie using Charlie](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/122350464458/mittensmorgul-im-rewatching-larp-and-the-real) when it was an assumed name but we actually find out she’s called Celeste and she doesn’t keep using it. I suppose the habit of using the first name you hear is just a thing that happens if the person with the name doesn’t offer you a better alternative or suggest they don’t like it.

* * *

> DEAN  
> You’ve been in Sam since he disappeared, haven’t you?
> 
> ~~SAM~~  MEG  
> You shoulda seen your face when you thought he murdered that guy. Pathetic.

Ooh, I didn’t realise this got confirmed. So Meg really was screwing with him the whole time. Ah well, no Sam character development at all for this episode then. :P It turns out it really was all about Dean, with Meg curious as to if Dean would go through with it.

* * *

So Meg actually plans to run off in Sam long-term to kill tons of hunters? She really isn’t honouring Azazel’s plan.

* * *

On the OTHER HAND, Dean left alive would be the biggest threat to Sam as the endgame of Azazel’s plan, unless they managed to prove that Dean wouldn’t kill Sam no matter how bad he got, which means that this is all a field test to see if Dean would do it, leaning on the fact he wouldn’t, not  _trying_ to get Sam killed, to make sure he wouldn’t be an inconvenience. If Azazel knows John took a few minutes to tell Dean what he knew then he knows Dean is technically a threat to his favourite, until tested.

I dunno, I am tinhatting Azazel as being way more the puppeteer of this season than the writers probably ever thought. :P

* * *

*Dean goes in the drink*

* * *

You can see him lying on the side while Jo is calling him if you know where to look. :P

Hehe wet hurt Dean. A fandom favourite combination.

* * *

*Jo does some good emergency patching up and Dean hits the hard liquor*

* * *

> JO  
> So, how did you know? That he was possessed?
> 
> DEAN  
> Uh, ah, I didn’t, I just knew that it couldn’t have been him.

Dean might not have faith in much but he does have faith that Sam isn’t murdery and evil. :3 Also I suppose once he stopped to think about it possession was the most obvious thing. So he did accurately hypothesise what was going on. Him saying he didn’t isn’t him saying he was lucky or whatever: he did intelligently work out what it most likely was, or he wouldn’t have gone at Sam with the holy water in the first place.

*adds it to the collection of smart!Dean stuff*

* * *

Poor Jo asking about if demons lie. :( And then saying it’s nothing. Good old emotional repression.

* * *

Wow, Jo did not do a good job on that bandage. It barely looks on there at all.

Should Dean take painkillers after chugging whiskey? Jo, you are the worst doctor. I can see why you’ve only really worked in bars.

* * *

> DEAN  
> Thanks. I’ll call you later, okay?
> 
> JO  
> (to herself, after DEAN is gone)  
> No you won’t.

Welp I think this is the last time we see her until season 5?

*gratuitous Jo spam to say goodbye*

* * *

Cutting from her to Bobby as they necessarily have to replace the Roadhouse (not safe with info and now full of emotional trauma on all sides) for someone a bit more paranoid and isolated who won’t end up with these issues with them because he’s too emotionally stunted in his own ways to cause the problems that the Roadhouse/Ellen n Jo bring with them. :P

* * *

Still not sure if this is the main Bobby house set. It still looks more cramped than I’m used to. I feel like the house got bigger once they knew they’d be using it more, probably because of the problem which had me catch seeing a crewmember crawling around under a table on this set :P

* * *

My favourite thing will always be Bobby carrying on taking another calm sip of his beer while Meg chokes out steam from the holy water. :D

* * *

> ~~SAM~~ MEG  
> Dean. Back from the dead. Getting to be a regular thing for you, isn’t it? Like a cockroach. 

Yeah but does Meg  _know_?

* * *

This is pretty much a direct parallel directly to the last time we had Meg here, so much there’s almost nothing to say on the major parallels to start with since they seem to be setting us up with familiarity to expect what will happen and how this will go.

Until Meg starts subverting it by being hard to exorcise and saying this:

> ~~SAM~~  MEG  
> You really think that’s what this is about? The master plan? I don’t give a rat’s ass about the master plan. 

FYI I know we talk about Meg as being loyal but seriously, compared to Ruby she really doesn’t care except for when Lucifer is offering her power. She doesn’t do anything in season 3 and 4 when Lilith is around and dangerous, and stuff like this makes me deeply distrust her later when she tries to play up being what Ruby actually was. Everything she was doing here - including massively endangering Sam’s life, as any other hunter might have shot first - is counter to her own father’s plan and she’ll pretty much say it’s about petty revenge here. When we had her in this chair last time she was acting loyal to her father but I guess after her experiences she’s lost faith (like how she was saying she could have killed Sam right away in her very first moment she’s revealed as a demon, she’s questioning Azazel’s orders).

* * *

Oh okay this might have all looked different at Bobby’s because there’s a serious mess caused here, so maybe when we come back it’s different because Bobby had to remodel a bit? The wall gets kinda dented when Bobby is thrown into it and there’s a big crack in the ceiling!

* * *

> ~~SAM~~  MEG  
> Hell is like, um … Well, it’s like hell. Even for demons. It’s a prison, made of bone and flesh and blood and fear. 

Ah our first sign that even demons don’t actually enjoy Hell. I mean I don’t think Azazel’s been down there in ages seeing as he wanders the earth doing his plans. I think Lilith and Alastair are the highest ranking demons down there we know of? And they’re definitely the cruellest. And we know Alastair at least tortured Meg. 

I’d guess she was getting used to being on the surface helping her dad and most of her loyalty comes from the fact that was the best offer going. There seems to be a disconnect between Hell and demons on Earth: because they’re very genuinely  _trapped_  in there orders don’t seem to go from one to the other. Being on Earth actually seems to be escaping the power structure.

* * *

Ooh so they don’t even exorcise Meg here, she just flees when they break the sigil on Sam’s arm. She’s not risking another exorcism. So she IS loose from now until season 5 (huh she and Jo spend the same time out? No, Jo shows up in 5x02 at least before Abandon All Hope), but she’s not helping the main team raise Lucifer - she really does seem to come out of nowhere and latch onto the bandwagon once he’s risen. Which makes me wonder if, despite her starry eyes over him, she particularly  _wanted_  that massive upheaval in their order until it came. She latched onto it as a cause to serve, but there was no mention of her serving the cause  _before_  it was unavoidable.

She has a  _pretty_  conspicuous absence.

* * *

Wow, Dean really didn’t need to punch Sam after all that, considering that’s basically the first things Sam knows of any of it since Meg jumped him.

* * *

Aw our first episode that wraps up sitting around at Bobby’s :D It’s staaarting.

* * *

Awwww Bobby encourages them to cover up the murder Meg committed by means of Sam in the first of the morally dubious decisions they’ll be making together as a team :3 I feel like I’m at home already. (Okay it’s not exactly terrible since Sam  _didn’t_  do it, but Dean lies to Bobby about knowing about the dead hunter when Bobby evidentially knows it’s connected, and he just nods and encourages him, while Sam tries to snitch on Meg. I can  _see_  Dean becoming Bobby’s favourite here by having the same mindset that keeps them alive and safe while Sam wants to fess up. Sam’s option might be more emotionally healthy for them to discuss in this room and it going no further, but Bobby emphasises the “it never happened” route of denying it even in closed company, and therefore encouraging dishonesty between them (at least, with that subtextual “we all know it’s connected to the Meg thing but we’re just not going to say it” thing).

I mean… I dunno, I love Bobby but I think this works because they’re all as messed up as each other. Ellen’s way too emotionally healthy even with her sad past so they’d argue a lot more over morality, while Bobby usually seems to be on the same page about stuff like this.)

* * *

*Dean and Bobby share one more look on the way out* *Bobby continues looking deeply disturbed*

There wasn’t really anything to prompt it but I wonder if that was a silent conversation about Sam. Bobby isn’t up to date, unless Dean told Bobby off-screen while they were staying there earlier, but he  _did_  have them for those three plus weeks immediately after John died so he’s seen them in a bad way and he’s concerned for them. He can tell things are Not Okay way beyond this one-off possession.

* * *

> SAM  
> That’s not my point. I almost carved up Jo too. But no matter what I did, you wouldn’t shoot.
> 
> DEAN  
> It was the right move, Sam. It wasn’t you.
> 
> SAM  
> Yeah, this time. What about next time?
> 
> DEAN  
> Sam, when Dad told me … that I might have to kill you, it was only if I couldn’t save you. Now, if it’s the last thing I do I’m gonna save you.

Yeah, like, okay, I’m still 100% unconvinced he would kill Sam BUT saving him was part of the order too and I think this gets forgotten sometimes? I know I do. :P We talk about Dean resurrecting Sam at the end of the season as him ultimately subverting John’s final order, but it was kind of honouring it too since Sam had not yet done anything to warrant killing him. The subversion would come in like season 4 when Sam was at his scariest, and Dean got to the point closest to not being able to save him, but this was 2 seasons in the past at that point and didn’t really come up in the discussion as far as I remember, except thematically. 

And Dean still didn’t manage it then. :P


	15. 2x15

Or: Season 2 deserves a special mention for watching with hindsight ruining everything. It’s literally a different show from the one I watched back in 2008 and you can never get the original season 2 back. :P

Basically the only things worse than season 2 in general in hindsight will be Lazarus Rising before Dean meets Cas officially, and maybe the early Dean/Crowley interaction, and even then both those heavily ironic dynamics got a season 2 episode with Crossroad Blues and Houses of the Holy. :P

It’s like, season 1 set up a good chunk of thematic things but wow is season 2 full of stuff pillaged for later seasons and things that make you screech about the irony of it all. I’m pretty sure none of the others are so impossible to watch through without mentioning this constantly. This is like, just a microcosm of the entire show, but completely  _oblivious_  to the fact it’s the entire show.

* * *

*idly wonders what on earth the opening montage could be for this episode*

  * Dean’s hangover cure from Playthings - “I hate you” Well that’s scraping the barrel already.
  * Dean putting a spoon in Sam’s mouth while Sam complains about the prank war
  * wow they’re desperate and we’re 3 points in - the extended sequence talking about pranking in the car where Dean mentions Nair, like, name dropping historical funny things there’s so little to go on
  * Okay yeah this is a summary of Hell House now with the radio thing
  * Implied itching powder “You’re a jerk!”
  * “You smell like a toilet”
  * a montage within the montage of every single time they’ve called each other bitch jerk chicken wuss… It is becoming rapidly apparent the only bad word Sam knows is “jerk” while Dean has endless variety
  * More Hell House pranks, seriously? Why do I get the feeling the opening montage of the NEXT silly episode will be all Tall Tales with like maybe the spoon thing thrown in? 



* * *

I know these things are all probably illusions but I prefer the scenario where the Trickster  _is_  the sexy ghost/alligator/aliens. It’s much funnier that way. :P I always liked to think of him turning into them.

…

Let’s just watch this like it’s 2008.

* * *

Aaah Mr Douchey professor. You should not have opened that window.

“I just respect you too much” *gag*

I read a theory the Trickster never intended for him to fall out of it and the gross out was all he intended - since what the professor does is so gross, kinda, making it a horrible warning not to keep perving on his students by reminding him of the horrific thing each time, basically, as an ongoing moral punishment/unforgettable boner killer.

Basically it rested on him pulling this face after the prof took his dive:

Well, he’s definitely not going to mourn him much even if he wasn’t  _meant_  to die. :P

* * *

The first time we meet the Trickster is via a set of keys opening a door. Given the endless symbolism about locks and keys in this show, I feel it’s probably important to note. You know, in case this guy turns out to be important later or something.

* * *

The Trickster’s got such a fun bounce to his step. :D

I have lived basically my entire adult life confused about where I know him from. And every time I got to IMDB and scroll all the way to the bottom and I swear Tall Tales is the first time I saw him and he was familiar as the Trickster when I watched Band of Brothers (which I watched in 2011 and after I’d caught up with the show and had seen all his original episodes), but I remain eternally convinced I already knew him when I watched this the first time.

*makes a detour to IMDB*

*scrolls through everything*

Apparently he had an extremely tiny role in Independence Day which I saw once when I was 10. 

*narrows eyes at the screen*

Let’s just put this down to his fun personality shining through and making me instantly like him, and move on before I sit here gnawing on my nails all day stressing if he’s an uncle no one ever told me about or something.

* * *

Oh yeah they’re in a hotel this episode! Going to cities is weird for them :P 

The sign is nice:

Too sleepy to work out if there’s symbolism but it’s a weird name and clearly about  _a_  theme even if I have no idea what. :P I mean the demons think Sam’s going to be king or something next season and he’s laired up here I guess??

* * *

Wow it’s a shoddy hotel on the inside - cracks on the walls, missing fittings, the couch looking like it’s started to decompose… 

I think the bedspread was in one of the motels last episode, but that bed is a whole new thing :P

Since this is now the more notable episode where it fits into the room better it’s henceforth the Tall Tales bedspread.

* * *

Sam n Dean are instantly narky with each other… Or, wait, no, this is the jumping off point for flashbacks. They’ve been  _made_  annoyed with each other over the course of the episode up until now. Obviously in context with last episode there’s not much to go on re: their dynamic, since it was Meg the whole time not Sam, but that still dragged up a lot of issues with Dean and how he deals with Sam. Looking back to Houses of the Holy, Dean was trapped in a motel room there and this episode part of their discomfort comes from feeling trapped together and all of their narkiness comes from spending too much time together and getting more and more annoyed by the other’s presence.

At the moment they’re  _still_ , what, 13 episodes after they gave Ash that stuff for tracking Yellow Eyes, waiting on any actual signs from him to follow so they’re in a long-term main plot holding pattern right now (I forgot at the start of the season how long it takes - I assumed by they time they do plot episodes again it would be about that, but of course they were lead there by other means) so even if this agitation is partially forced by the Trickster, it’s still building on a frustration they’d have with this season. They can’t be perfectly normal because something awful is looming in their nearish future, but they don’t know what or where or when. They’re carrying on hunting because Sam wants to but Dean still, multiple episodes after expressing how done he was in Croatoan and having to be emotionally blackmailed back onto the job by Sam in the next episode, hasn’t  _actually_  been given any compelling reason to do it except for Sam, and so him expressing his frustration with being trapped with Sam is a very real thing based on cross-season character development.

Anyway I am rambling. 

* * *

Well, Dean isn’t helping research either - when Sam asks what would make it go faster you’d expect him to ask Dean to help if they’re stuck with books but he just complains about the laptop. And Dean sits there reading a magazine and eating something gross. Meanwhile Dean says he would go exist somewhere else but the car - made into a symbol of escape for him at this exact point - is all screwed up. Basically, Sam’s upset about doing the job, Dean about being trapped with Sam. Not sure at this point how Dean ended up emphatically not helping to the point where Sam isn’t even asking but then the episode has only just started.

* * *

The room is a MESS, probably to demonstrate how they’re mouldering in there researching and drinking and eating junk food. I don’t think we often see them accumulate so much shite in one go (also - the plastic drink cartons and takeaway boxes visible in the first screenshot from this room):

We’ve got 3 pizza boxes, Chinese takeaway, more indistinguishable wrappers, at least 2 different brands of beer, more research, another Styrofoam food box suggesting burgers… 

* * *

Hey Bobby! So after last episode where they went to see him for the first time all season since the opening, now he’s in a second consecutive episode and this time will  _seriously_  demonstrate how he’s useful for their dynamic. It’s pretty clear I guess that they decided the show wanted more Bobby after the midseason, at least to assist them until the end of this season, because this is an abrupt switch in supporting characters, after Ellen and Jo declined in usefulness as they got emotionally complicated. Like I said last time, Bobby is exactly their sort of paranoid bastard. :P

This does fit into the wider thing that they always need a support or secondary character(s) to fall back on. In season 1 it was John so understandably awful in terms of actual support and they were aiming towards him, but the start of this season set up several characters who’d be useful for the Winchesters moving forwards, to fill that narrative gap where they  _need_  another character to tell them stuff and move them from place to place sometimes. Bobby does a very good job of that role for like 6 more seasons since he fit so well. And I feel it’s probably this episode that demonstrates properly what he can actually be to them.

* * *

*Bobby moves a grody so far undocumented fast food tray out of the way so he can sit down to listen to the story*

* * *

> JEN  
> No. But they say she jumped from room six-six-nine. Get it? You turn the nine upside down?  
> So now she haunts the building. And anyone who sees her? They don’t live to tell the tale.
> 
> CURTIS  
> Well if no one lives to tell the tale, then how does the tale get told?
> 
> JEN  
> Curtis! Shut up!

Yeah shut up Curtis.

I like the sneaky Lucifer mention :3 He’s been in a lot of episodes recently.

But yeah, this is another example of those  _aaalmost_  meta episodes like Hell House and the upcoming Hollywood Babylon where they’re still not committing to utterly trashing the fourth wall, so they just carefully prod at it by noting that urban legends are a thing and we all know this is what the show (at least season 1) was based on, and then they make fun of how they’re told and so on. Again, like Hell House, kinda nosing around at being postmodern without quite committing :P

Once we get the second layer of Sam n Dean’s storytelling it gets better with the layers and a commentary on how all the stories are told, and making fun of their character stereotypes still within the main narrative…

* * *

Oh! This is my first re-watch since actually tasting one of those shots Dean was drinking. 0/10 would not recommend. Our office’s intern threw up on me that night.

* * *

Still not as gross as how Dean is with “Starla” and how she’s blatantly disgustingly hammered (like, if Dean had actually taken home a girl this obviously pissed we’d all cry foul). I’m not sure which one of their stories to take more truthfully since the revolting details of an encounter do tend to stick in the memory better, but while Dean didn’t know her name, he knew she was an anthropology and folklore grad student… but didn’t actually get any information from her, and their behaviour is massively exaggerated to make the encounter way classier than it ever feasibly could have been, and then this interpretation of Sam is completely stupid.

But truth for the “staring into the sun” line. :P

Yeah, I’d go with Sam’s story since it gels better with Dean’s behaviour, but perhaps not  _so_  over the top. The Major Tom/shuttle pilot thing is, like, Barney Stinson levels of picking up gullible people in bars, so…

* * *

> BOBBY  
> No, come on. You’re bickering like an old married couple. 
> 
> DEAN  
> No, see married couples can get divorced. Me and him, we’re like, uh, Siamese twins.
> 
> SAM  
> It’s conjoined twins!
> 
> DEAN  
> See what I mean?
> 
> SAM  
> Look, it, we’ve just been on the road for too long. Tight quarters, all that. Don’t worry about it. 
> 
> BOBBY  
> Okay.

Detective!Bobby at work! This is low-key an episode about the smart detective coming in and interviewing the moronic victims and working out who stole their candy.

Anyway yeah, Sam n Dean are bound together by the narrative - nay, the very plot of their show - and so they can’t escape each other ever. I’d say Hell is other people but I’ve spent all day listening to a woodchipper.

Which is also making me think about Bobby for completely unrelated reasons.

* * *

… Jesus Christ. Forget everything about watching like I’m in 2008 for a minute.

Okay, I’m gonna skip ahead like 7/8 seasons here and copy paste something from one of [my few rewatches I’d already done](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/117293790233/is-still-deliriously-re-watching-season-9-and) during season 10. 

> Is that green couch the one that was behind Cas when he got his wings back?

  


> CONSPIRACY.

Take a wild guess about what just made me snort tea across my desk:

It’s like the smaller, cuter version before it was a big important sofa. :P 

You are now officially an armchair in the early seasons, Mr Trickster.

I went investigating and turned up this:

[http://www.homeofthenutty.com/supernatural/screencaps/displayimage.php?album=101&pid=49793#top_display_media](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D101%26pid%3D49793%23top_display_media&t=NGEyN2M4NjQ1ZmVhOGViMmYwNGM5MGJiY2ExMzFhYzUwOGI0NzA4OSx4b1luRGtsUA%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F122791776553%2Fspn-hellatus-rewatch-2x15-or-season-2-deserves-a&m=1)

Not green, unfortunately, but the same button pattern on the cushions.

I am now 1000% convinced of Gabriel’s return when I wasn’t 10 minutes ago thanks to the 9x18/10x18 link because of this. I’ll keep an eye out in Mystery Spot but I’m not feeling up to wading into that one now since I’ll be going there soon anyway. :P

* * *

Anyway. Back to 2008.

*quiet giggling at everything the Trickster says* His tone of voice is just perfect. I can see why they bumped him up if he wasn’t planned to be more than this. He’s just so amused and better than you about everything. 

I like how Sam and Dean gave up with the whole jumpsuit thing by this point and just threw on jackets with the security badge, but are otherwise in their normal duds.

Sabriel shippers love this interaction (and I think it’s adorable :P). I don’t know if Sam telling the story is overcompensating for his general abnormal season 2 grumpiness or if his enthusiasm is genuine but he’s certainly talking about himself being super interested in what the Trickster has to say - I guess to emphasise how he’s super on the ball about the job all the time and Dean is goofing off to stuff his face like a chipmunk because he doesn’t care so much, which is accurate character interpretation of them at this point with their current mood in the wider season, and so the over-exaggeration makes total sense.

… Doesn’t stop it being a very cute moment where Sam is sparkling at the Trickster, and, since he’s like the living equivalent of a box of bouncy balls someone just dropped down a hill, he’s right back at you to Sam.

* * *

He’s having a lot of fun playing along with them… It IS funnier to imagine him as Gabriel having  _the friggin’ Winchesters_  walk in on his fun and start asking questions about the fake ghost killing you set up and getting this sneaky first look before anyone else except like, Azazel, has ever dared interact with them, but even just as the Trickster he is  _delighted_  to have hunters nosing around. Like hell yeah, loiter around in the room after he lets them in, and ask them loads of questions about their EMF and tell them ~eeeveerything~ the janitor would know about the mystery girl and the dead professor. 

They’re all best friends by the end.

He’s gleeful about the 669 detail making its way in there. Aww yeah, look at my little baby urban legend all grown up and baffling the hunters!

I’m pretty sure no matter how much he annoys them later, he’s like objectively at this point he’s one of their favourite people they’ve ever talked to. :P

“He got more ass than a toilet seat.” < how to make a Winchester your bestie.

* * *

Back to the motel room where they’re just cracking into their first box of pizza.

Nice continuity with the detritus that ended up in the room by the time Bobby got there. :3

* * *

You know I wonder if Dean actually did break the laptop? Yes, he has a later inclination towards “Busty Asian Beauties” but setting that aside as perhaps a carry over thing (this is the first time it’s mentioned I think?) they took from this episode without considering the details (Or Dean checked it out because he liked the sound of it :P), if the Trickster was screwing around with them to make them fall out, then he is the one who broke the laptop to foster more brother bad will (forget Mystery Spot - messing with the laptop is why you have to work your way around grim canon facts to ship Sabriel cheerfully :P). It’s certainly one of the first things that happens chronologically to make them narky with each other. If it’s one of the Trickster’s things, with his well-documented love of sending his friends porn to show love (okay we’re going a little out of season 2 here :P) stuck it on there. And it seems like that’s probable from the rest of the episode’s context (considering Sam was still annoyed about it in the opening of the episode on a level with Dean complaining about the car getting messed up), either he could have influenced it by making the laptop screen freeze after Dean was on there, or by just setting it all up without Dean having to touch it first. (I mean later canon massively backs this up with his major super power being the spontaneous production of dodgy porn, though I think normally affiliated with Casa Erotica?) 

Which is a pretty funny thought for what Dean would be wondering about if he hadn’t been near Busty Asian Beauties. So if we take Dean’s initial “What no I didn’t?” reaction as honest (it doesn’t seem very OTT fake anyway and we’re still presumably in Sam’s narration?)… When Sam accuses him with more details Dean just kind of edges out of the room without denying anything, pulling a face which could be an admission of guilt along with his dodging the subject, but is left ambiguous, like he could just be rolling with the accusation because he doesn’t find it horrendously shameful even if it is baffling and he’s not going to get really hung up on denying it to save face (he wouldn’t care Sam knew he liked that sort of porn). So in the funny scenario where it’s entirely conjured by the Trickster, Dean denies it at first because he didn’t do it, but when Sam says what’s frozen on the screen, Dean edges away wondering if Sam did it and is trying to blame him anyway, or this is a sign of his inevitable slide into darkness as per last episode (Maybe if they haven’t touched the laptop since then, Meg did it? Let’s blame Meg :P), or if they’ve just managed to pick up a virus from somewhere else.

And he’s just one of those grumpy fucks who lets everyone blame him for everything all the time because why not - he’s done plenty of other bad stuff and if Sam feels like accusing him to make himself feel better… 

*random Dean feels off a really rubbish joke*

* * *

Eeey alien time!

I find it rather implausible that Edlund didn’t write this, although my extremely casual knowledge about John Shiban is that he is one of the X-Files imports. So the later writers like Edlund and Robbie who kept/keep gunning for aliens are  _really_  just honouring the old legacy of the show. :P

* * *

> BOBBY  
> My whole life I’ve never found evidence of an honest-to-God abduction. It’s all just cranks and pranks. 

I like that Bobby has seriously looked into alien stuff before, if only to reassure himself I guess?

Also: the wise detective has a better idea of what’s going on already. 

To date, the show has not topped slow-dancing with an alien.

* * *

I like how the Trickster went to all the effort of creating the burn marks on the grass and so on. At this point I am certain he’s leaving enough stuff for Sam n Dean to investigate, whether he intended them to show up or not (I like to think this was all an accident). If he’d genuinely been there six years as part of his ongoing cover (and he seemed to have a pretty cushy set up) and if he didn’t have a LONG history of intensely pranking on campus grounds and he just took umbrage at the professor over his ways and decided to top him before the Winchesters showed up, then it’s not a coincidence that the next attack happened the same night they started asking questions and then since he was already at it and leading them on, the croc attack guy next.

* * *

I like how over-sympathetic Sam’s victim is massively uncomfortable and giving zero signs he needs a hug before he gets glomped. 

Confirmed: Sam’s favourite meme is the cinnamon roll meme.

* * *

There’s only 1 pizza box on the fridge still when they come in from interviewing the poor brave soldier who had been so traumatised by Curtis’s abduction.

A box of Chinese takeaway has appeared. Just in time for Sam to start yelling about Dean’s awfulness to room with.

> SAM  
> We keep the door locked. We never let any maids in. 

Well that’s obvious.

* * *

Dean figured out the pattern :D 

> DEAN  
> I mean, these punishments—they’re almost poetic. Actually, it’d be more like a limerick, but still – 

Probably also that you write rude limericks in the Trickster’s Christmas cards.

* * *

So Dean definitely didn’t  _take_  the computer in the second instance. Can’t tell if this is just fortuitous that they were already arguing about it when the Trickster nicked it, or if he’s responsible for the whole thing, although I’m still going with him screwing with them from the moment he met them.

* * *

But why did a research scientist have his office in the same building as an Ethics professor?  _Why_?

Also how does Sam casually know what kinds of scales look like? He never watches Shark Week but he knows fine details of alligator biology. Sam Winchester,  _what makes you tick?_

* * *

> SAM  
> Maybe we should get some help. I’ll call Bobby. Maybe he’s run into something like this before. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Oh, I’m sure he has. Just your typical haunted campus, alien abduction, alligator-in-the-sewer gig. Yeah, it’s simple.

*collecting hilarious lines*

* * *

Haha the Trickster made them crawl around in the sewer.

He  _loooves_  his job.

* * *

Aaand engage brother fight. 

* * *

> BOBBY  
> I’m surprised at you two. I really am. 

Thanks for being there to yell at them Bobby :P

His telling them off kind of obviously stepping into the replacement father role (which at this point is not canon in that they never mention how well they knew him when they were younger until  _much later_  so this was just the writing choice right then to make him quickly fill the gap, though the unspoken letting them stay at his for 3 weeks after John died does silently fill some of that in)… Everyone ends up being proxy family to the Winchesters since it’s the only thing they really understand: he can’t just be a friend who is close to them; this is like his 3rd episode and the first where he comes out to help them and participates more actively in the episode as a whole… And he’s already managing them like a weary parent.

I’m commemorating Sam’s face.

I do find it interesting that he objected when Bobby said it wasn’t Dean who took the laptop, but Dean says nothing… And then when Bobby says it wasn’t Sam who wrecked the car, Sam is  _again_  the one who vocalises a “see?!” and Dean just sits there.

I mean he is the annoying little brother but we don’t actually see that nearly as often as Dean being the stereotypical big brother.

* * *

“You guys were the biggest clue.”

*two seasons down the line, Dean’s sadface.* “I don’t wanna be a clue.”

* * *

> DEAN  
> So, what is it, what, what, spirit, demon, what? 
> 
> BOBBY  
> Well, more like demigods, really.

Ehehehehe.

* * *

Sorry. *pulls a straight face* 

I did get really enamoured with the idea of him being Loki after this episode and hoped we’d see Anansi since he was a favourite from picture books when I was a kid, but nah. Not what we got.

Well. I suppose there’s still plenty of room for a  _real_  trickster to show up, and since we know who Loki turned out to be all along, Anansi is the next biggest name on the list. :D

I can dream.

* * *

I am now actively angry the Trickster doesn’t have a tacky green sofa in his bizarrely fancy apartment.

The  _dog_. I wonder what happened to it? He probably left it somewhere very safe. I refuse to believe it was an illusion. It’s probably very old and comfy and happy somewhere right now.

* * *

> TRICKSTER  
> Sorry I’m dragging a little ass today, boys. Had quite the night last night. (He turns to look at them.) Lots of sex, if you catch my drift. 
> 
> DEAN  
> Yeah, hard not to.

*has been trying to hard not to just quote everything that makes me laugh.*

* * *

I love the way he dives in to look intently at Sam when he says he left something in the truck. With such a shifty look. Since he’s been onto them from the moment he saw them. :P

Bonus points for characterisation that Sam thought to suggest they had a truck since they’re maintenance or security guys or something. 

* * *

> SAM  
> Just ‘cause he reads the  _Weekly World News_  doesn’t mean he’s our guy. I mean, you read it, too. 

[Let me refer you back to 2x03 where in a delirium of migraine-y confusion I wrote an elaborate AU about Dean as the Weekly World News journalist and Cryptozoology hoaxer Cas.](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/121684153588/spn-hellatus-rewatch-2x03-i-spaced-out-and)

Since Dean fudged up pronouncing it back then I’m guessing he accidentally got hooked since? Probably as a result of using it as a cover?

Secret background characterisation of Dean in season 2.

* * *

This is pretty much 100% of the reason to make ridiculous comments because then you remember silly details later. Which is how I recognised the sofa in 9x18 and then the chair this episode. :P

* * *

> SAM  
> What? Are you really still pissed at me 'cause of what the trickster did? 
> 
> DEAN  
> You been a tight ass long before that trickster showed up.

Just to make sure people know this episode’s fighting was exacerbated but not out of character. :P

So much moody Trickster staring out of a window at them.

* * *

The stained glass window seems to be all Jesus symbolism, with an emphasis on crowns, like the hotel sign. They spared a fraction of a second to flash it up on the screen so I’m guessing they wanted Jesus imagery going on. Trickster’s going to die but not this episode, which doesn’t count as he was just playing. But Sam’s gonna die for a while at the end of this season. :3

* * *

Okay this disco ball is just making me laugh at how hard Metatron fangirls Gabriel.

* * *

Also my brain wandered off with seeing a bed on a stage to think about 10x05 and I’ll Just Wait Here Then.

* * *

Heeey Trickster. Casually offering Dean some alone time with your imaginary girlfriends in exchange for being left alone.

> TRICKSTER  
> I know what you and your brother do. I’ve been around a while. Run into your kind before. 

Okay, but since hunters aren’t actually a threat to him, take yourself back out of 2008 and think about that line re: Michael and Lucifer and how he was perpetually fed up with Sam n Dean because of that. :P Say he knows the score here, this ‘go away and leave me alone’ is another ‘shove off and don’t get the main plot all over me’

Not that they really could have done that to him, but I guess he’s got to be at least a bit cautious of spending too much time around them or having them interested in him, given Sam’s actively been on the path to the apocalypse since his powers activated in season 1.

* * *

They’re both having such a friendly weirdly respectful conversation. Like, yeah, we’re going to have to fight aww. Shame. We could have just sat around reading Weekly World News and enjoying random sexy figments.

But no, now the sexy figments beat up Dean in a style  _weirdly_  reminiscent of Sam vs Clowns from season 7.

Then when Dean stabs him the look is just  _this is why you don’t have friends_.

Probably. :P

* * *

I feel like I should really have more ire towards the use of the figment ladies but their “aaaw” when they’re de-summoned is just so cute and funny. I guess because they’re not real I can’t be annoyed about them being objectified in the same way?

* * *

*vaguely distressed about the Trickster’s “I’ve just been stabbed” face being so accurately portrayed compared to Gabriel’s  _actual_  (so far as we know, sofa notwithstanding) “I’ve just been stabbed” face.*

* * *

Wait so they’re just legging it and leaving the body there and not burning it? Like they even reference the fact they’re legging it because they left his body lying around?

The Trickster immediately docks them all 100 points for being terrible at this.

* * *

I do like the final shot of him implying ominously that more is to come. I never know what to expect re: looking forwards into the apocalypse from season 3, but I kinda like to think they wanted him to end up being  _something_  since that was the most blatant “you’ll be seeing me again” evar.

We will.

So much so that certain people will begin tinhatting that various inanimate objects, from carpets, Cas’s car and, not to name any names,  _sofas_  are a sign you’re alive and well and somewhere offscreen you watched Lucifer stab you and waited an appropriate amount of time to dematerialise the body and move on with your life. :P


	16. 2x16

Or: am I really rubbish if this is one of my favourite episodes of the whole show? I feel like this is an episode a lot of people go “Yaaawn Roadkill whatever” and I’m like “Hell yeah, it’s ghost time!”

…

I can be extra terrible and admit ghosts are often my favourite monsters.

* * *

Oh good we’re back to the generic opening “Storm’s coming. Hunting things saving people blah blah.”

* * *

There’s an emphasis on their mentality which gets challenged every now and again for compulsively hunting things just because they’re monsters/ghosts/whatever. Obviously Molly is a bit more of a complicated puzzle and also so sympathetic we’re only allowed to suspect she’s dead until basically the very very end of the episode.

I think ghosts are much easier for challenging perceptions since they’ve met so many who are good, and even some of the ones who have been killing, e.g. Father Gregory, were ultimately sympathetic and could be reasoned with an moved on.

Since the point’s been stressed once with a ghost this season, this is a massive helping of foreshadowing for an end of season ghost to say it all again.

* * *

Besides, this episode starts with House of the Rising Sun playing quietly on the radio.

* * *

Molly and David’s fight is kinda dull but I pretty much just choose to believe they’re being set up as  _the absolute most boring average dull people ever_. Like, they are going to have the conversation every dull suburban couple have ever had while lost on a road trip to make them generically sympathetic in the most boring way.

She’s, like, the quiet cousin at a family gathering who stresses that no one likes the oat cupcakes she made.

* * *

It’s important to ask if this is a ghost car because it’s currently still steaming and I imagine since David survived it wouldn’t exactly have been lost and forgotten.

I suppose we already had a ghost truck before, so manifesting a car along with herself when she appears wouldn’t be too out of the question.

* * *

I also like this episode for the interactions between the ghosts - I don’t think we get much ghost cross-over again until that season 7 episode with Bobby and the hugely haunted house? Because the victims of ghosts all die violently too and so if they’ve got a historical killing pattern, why  _wouldn’t_  there be ghosts of the victims at most of these sites? So season 2 getting in on that early is nice. 

Anyway, she can see the candles in his window which are also manifestations… I can’t remember how the house looks exactly when they’re there later, but I swear it’s darker.

Or, well, he had the house and the creepy lodge which is what I think Molly found just then?

I dunno. :P

*quietly continues enjoying ghosts hanging with ghosts*

* * *

One of the other advantages of this episode: it’s Molly’s POV for like 35 minutes so minimal bro-angst. :P Mm. 

* * *

(I love the bro angst as you can tell since I waste pages on it each episode, but breather episode! Woo!)

* * *

I suppose there’s no real argument to have about taking a ghost with them because it’s not like they can get her killed while dragging her on a hunt.

* * *

Whoops, the car de-manifested.

* * *

I feel awful for Molly’s actress wearing that wide-necked shirt while it’s snowing outside. Can’t die in a scarf, can you?

* * *

I suppose we get a little bro angst with that thing where she talks about arguing in the car and how her last words were calling David a jerk. As last episode’s opening montage suggested, the only bad word Sam knows is jerk. I’d joke about how this clearly makes her the Sam parallel but they end up really bonding over something or other in the middle of the episode as far as I recall.

* * *

But then we get back to Molly angst.

And House of the Rising Sun is playing again!

It’s funny because at the end of the episode they take her to her house and then she walks into the rising sun.

* * *

Dean deciding to ram the ghost is the best thing. :D 

Even if it did kinda kill Baby. Oops. Well done Dean.

Now we know. Ghosts are bad for the car.

* * *

I like how Dean says they weren’t cruising for chicks when they were aware of her being part of the ghost lore of this road so were somewhat aware of the fact they might bump into her.

* * *

Sam’s disappointed squeak about not sugar-coating the whole ghost thing to her.

:D

* * *

Didn’t she kill Farmer Greely in the original accident which is why they’re actually bound together? Hm, maybe the thing about the victims being stuck with the ghost that killed them is a thing that DOESN’T get addressed for ages. 

TBH they kind of make this episode a whole lot worse for themselves by letting her think that Greely took David and her car because then she fixates on it as ghosts are wont to do and wastes a ton of their time freaking out about it.

And since she’s so together and not ghosty they get very emotionally invested in her and keep forgetting that she’s already dead and try to help her stay alive in very realistic ways at times, even if their end goal is helping her to make her move on.

* * *

Oh look the candle is out in the window in the hunting cabin.

Dean actually has a duffel with him which is a good start: they don’t always seem to come very well prepared. Points for effort.

* * *

Sam n Dean casually explaining ghost lore to her all the time like it’s no big deal… I swear they’re challenging her to realise what she is.

* * *

Mollyyy don’t wander off.

Dean shoots Greely and manages to completely miss Molly with a sawed off shotgun blast of salt. Imagine if he’d tagged her.

* * *

“Follow the creepy brick road” - sneaking in some Oz references like 7 seasons early. :D

* * *

While I love the shot through the screen door and the hole in it, I am pretty bemused by the fact the Greelys apparently kept a candle on the toaster.

* * *

There are so many bottles in the house. Judging by the fact there’s graffiti on the wall I’m going to assume it’s because people have sneaked in here to drink and everything weird about this place is the result of local drunkards and not ghostly activity.

* * *

Research, Sammy! Spread aaall over the floor for you.

* * *

Awww Greely in happier times with cute notes and letters. Which… are in conspicuously different hands each time. *squints at the scrapbook wondering how many people were writing to Marion* 

> Dearest Marion,  
> It has been awhile since I have written one of these to you. Perhaps the last one was before you and I were wed. Last night as I was looking at the moon, I thought I saw your face in it. I can’t remember a day I have not known you. That there was once a world where the sun rose and set and I did not know you were breathing under it. I sometimes take a walk through the hills and over that lookout, the one high up around the [indecipherable], and I just look at the sky and feel so lucky to have met you. I don’t know what my life would be like without Marion. I hope that life treats us well. Your heart and my heart make a whole. I feel [indecipherable] travel through life as one and I am lost without you my dear Marion. Please don’t ever leave me without you to wake up to every morning and hold every night. I won’t know who I am.  
> You are my goddess.  
> All my love,  
> Jonah, XXXOOO

* * *

> MOLLY   
> It’s a love letter he wrote her. My god, it’s beautiful. I don’t understand how a guy like this can turn into that monster. 
> 
> SAM  
> Um … Spirits like Greeley are, uh … like wounded animals. Lost. In so much pain that … they lash out. 
> 
> MOLLY  
> Why? Why are they here? 
> 
> SAM  
> Well, there’s some part of them that… that’s keeping them here. Like their remains or, um… unfinished business. 
> 
> MOLLY  
> Unfinished business?   
>   
> SAM  
> Yeah. Uh, it could be revenge. Could be love. Or hate. Whatever it is, they just hold on too tight. Can’t let go. So they’re trapped. Caught in the same loops. Replaying the same tragedies over and over. 
> 
> MOLLY  
> You sound almost sorry for them. 
> 
> SAM  
> Well, they weren’t evil people, you know? A lot of them were good. Just… Something happened to them. Something they couldn’t control. 
> 
> DEAN  
> [appears]

I once wrote an  _extremely_  long thing about how Dean was a vengeful ghost in habit and personality all through Carver Era so far.

Seriously though, every time the show stops to describe how vengeful ghosts act, all I can hear is  _Dean Dean Dean_ and not just because I normally get choked up about him thinking about anything, but because something like this is just a tragic description of how he’s been lately.

* * *

Also Sam’s line about them not being evil people and how they were good really echoes to 10x23 and what he said there to try and bring Dean back.

Hm.

* * *

I like how Sam and Molly get all caught up scrapbooking and then Dean comes in and starts moving furniture, kicking things, and getting stuff done.

Tiny doors to bigger spaces always creep me out. Like, yeah, I’ve heard a lot of explanations for why you’d do it when building a house but it’s still just an inherently creepy thing.

* * *

*jumps violently because it’s 2am and I should be asleep but instead I am watching something that will display a mummified corpse on screen*

Massive kudos to Sam for wanting to lay her to rest. I think Dean is mostly objecting because it’s gross, because his voice gets kinda squeaky when he says “why not” about leaving her there, and complains about having to touch her. Not sure it’s entirely a moral stance given the deep-rooted evidence of Dean’s germ-phobia and general massive dislike of doing revolting things.

I bet he was the kid who got woozy during dissections in science class,  _even though_ he’d probably been exposed to all manner of gross monster guts or stuff in the past. :P

* * *

Headcanon: he almost certainly puked because of the frog dissection.

* * *

> MOLLY  
> So… So, if you manage to put Greeley to rest, too… What happens to them? 
> 
> DEAN  
> Lady, that answer is way beyond our pay grade. 
> 
> MOLLY  
> You hunt these things, but you don’t know what happens to them? 
> 
> DEAN  
> Well, they never come back. That’s all that matters.

Ooh I like the mention of “them” … I bet the Greelys, if they both made it to Heaven are soulmates (I doubt the in-universe morality judges suicide and doing bad stuff after you become a ghost is seen as inevitable random lashing out in the pain of a tortured soul even if it does seem directed, personal, and driven to actually experience it).

Unless that really is just a construct for the sake of breeding angel vessels as I’ve seen speculated, as the only soulmates we’ve seen for 100% no argument sure are Jimmy n Amelia, and implied John n Mary as a direct result of cupid interference.

Anyway, I think this is an important question to be asking given A: the end of the season and B: the fact we already had our angel tease in the middle of the season. It’s also been implied ghosts of bad people have gone to hell, and at least Father Gregory very recently had a much more gentle moving on, as Molly will. I know the first time through this episode I was left blinking sadly and musing a lot on how they’d genuinely opened up the possibility for Heaven as a construct within this world… Which, well, I wasn’t wrong. :P

* * *

(I mean the inherent duality of Heaven and Hell in the general consciousness makes it seem  _awfully_  inevitable if you allow one to exist first with no comment on the other for 3 seasons. If there was only Hell the metaphysics would get all off-balance)

* * *

*Sam stays to talk to Molly and Dean is doing all the hard shovelling*

> SAM  
> Umm… Well, my dad used to say that was like death for ghosts, you know? But… The truth is, we still don’t know. Not for sure.   
> Guess that’s why we all hold on to life so hard. Even the dead. We’re all just scared of the unknown. 

Molly gets extremely emotional about this and stares into the grave, and then, after perhaps getting a bit too close to the kind of contemplation that would lead to the truth, goes back to doing her ghost fixation thing on David.

* * *

Aah, now we’re more than halfway through we start getting Sam n Dean POV… No, wait, it was just Molly overhearing them talking about her.

Sam’s getting emotionally caught up on Molly’s case now, and wants to tell her perhaps to give her some peace and try and move her on.

Dean gets that having Molly as is actually helps them since Greely is fixated on her, so he can’t yet.

* * *

Creeepy use of that song.

Mollyyy don’t stand by the - never mind, you’ve been kidnapped by a ghost. Congratulations.

* * *

Ooh, different angle on the kitchen. Some more jars.

* * *

> SAM  
> It’s an old country custom, Dean. Planting a tree as a grave marker. 
> 
> DEAN  
> You’re like a walking encyclopedia of weirdness. 
> 
> SAM  
> Yeah. I know.

Ongoing story of Sam knowing everything strange about death and the occult. He’s got to have studied this sort of stuff in his spare time… I don’t think there’s evidence for him having a photographic memory in the same way it seems to come across with Dean, but he’s definitely a deep information sink and anything he studies isn’t lost on him - like, he draws up that symbol connected to Metatron at the end of season 8 from his Stanford days where he wasn’t even expressly studying something to do with the occult.

* * *

Urgh, this is the bit where Greely tortures her. Whyyy is this necessary.

* * *

She tries to remind Greely of his wife in order to convince him to stop hurting her, but it doesn’t work - he’s completely fixated on hurting her. I guess they both feel like they’ve been taken from their loved ones - blaming each other for it. It ties them together in a horrible way, to have their two individual ghost motivations fixed on the other.

* * *

Dean shooting rock salt directly at him in front of her to scatter him without affecting her. Hmmm.

“Thank God!” “Yeah, call me Dean.” :3

* * *

As per usual Dean ends up shoved against a wall. 

* * *

Oh no… Here comes the reveal. David’s alive! Woo! Let’s go see David!

* * *

I’m pretty sure there’s a bit of wilful denial that comes with being a ghost. She’s so desperate to complete her motivation of seeing him again that she doesn’t question the timeline about her accident and them knowing here he might be… It isn’t until they’re outside she says she doesn’t understand.

* * *

I feel like there’s an alternative explanation here where David just had a secret wife he went to.

* * *

Oh no wait, she’s just a ghost.

* * *

And  _she’s_  partially responsible for all the deaths on the road.

I feel like the fact David was her tether means in later seasons they’d have contemplated burning him, like they almost did with the organ donor girl in the mannequin episode.

On the other hand the fact she could be shown how to let go without needing anything burned even when she was fixated on one particular person is all sorts of metaphorically pleasing to me.

* * *

Poor Molly. :<

* * *

She’s starting to look more faded in the early morning light. Well, they all do, but she looks so grey and small. :(

Bah and Sam’s so nice and sympathetic through the episode… He talks her all the way through this from the start.

*Molly disappears into the sun*

Bye Molly!

* * *

> DEAN  
> I guess she wasn’t so bad… for a ghost. You think she’s really going to a better place? 
> 
> SAM  
> I hope so. 
> 
> DEAN  
> I guess we’ll never know. Not until we take the plunge ourselves, huh? 
> 
> SAM  
> Doesn’t really matter, Dean. Hope’s kind of the whole point.

Ahahahaha. Oh, they’ll know one day soon.

But aww Sam and faith. He’s still trying! He got beaten down by Houses of the Holy but he’s clinging on to the bits that make sense, like the fact that you can still  _hope_  for it even if the world doesn’t seem to be favouring your POV.

* * *

Wow, this is one of the shorter episodes… Only by a couple of minutes, but it feels short to watch, is really uncomplicated despite (or perhaps because of) the twist, and then wraps up at 37 minutes in. 

Guess there’s really not that much to say about it. 

(I MAINTAIN THAT IT IS A GOOD WATCH AND NOT TOO AWFUL AND MAKES ME THINK IN A GOOD WAY.)


	17. 2x17

Or: AU where quirky office girl meets manly hunter. It’s love at first sight! But oh no, she’s a werewolf?! Their families will never approve! Hijinks ensure. Declarations are made in the rain. Everyone lives happily ever after.

And we can pretend this whole uncomfortable mess never happened.

(Fair warning, I’ve never been fond of Heart)

* * *

San Francisco is the worst place to be a werewolf because it’s stereotypically foggy so much if you were trying to keep track of the moon without a diary you’d be in trouble.

(I’ve only visited it for like 4 days of my life ever but this seems to be a thing)

* * *

Eugh, Madison’s skeevy boss not getting the hint for way too long, and her friends all laugh it off, and then cut to her stalker ex staring at her. Are  _all_  those guys interested in her just pervs, or is the dude outright stalking her a werewolf too, but not  _the_  werewolf? I know she claws up her can’t-get-the-message boss first, but I can’t remember what happens to the other guy…

This is massively a story about the threat of sexual assault, and Madison fights back, and it’s the whole moon cycle thing (werewolves have that inherently monstrous female symbolism) and then they have to kill her for it? Blargh, I’m not so sure of the extremely broad strokes themes of this episode going into it.

Everyone gets distracted by Sam crying but I’m already kind of uncomfortable :P

* * *

Madison was the first person to notice her boss was dead when the door was wide open. I suppose if she was a good assistant she’d always be there very early, though there are a lot of phones ringing in the background of this scene. Maybe their next door office is just noisy but she was the first person in their office.

* * *

Sam’s apparently playing the detective in the morgue all by himself and just wearing his scruffy jacket and studenty sweater instead of bothering with a suit.

This is still back when Sam wearing sweaters wasn’t wildly out of the question. I know we’re all excited about the Christmas sweaters thanks to the gag reel releasing, but I mean would it be too weird to encourage Sam to wear normal boring sweaters sometimes just because?

* * *

I guess Dean is still on lockdown then when it comes to cases in busy areas and interacting with the authorities.

> SAM: First  _man_. Over the past year, several women have gone missing. Dead bodies all washed up later in the bay, too deteriorated to draw firm conclusions.
> 
> DEAN: But no hearts?
> 
> SAM: No hearts. They were all hookers working Hunter’s Point. Now, cops are trying to keep things under wrap, but they’re looking for a serial killer.

Okay so there’s an emphasis on how women have been the victims, of the male werewolf, and then Madison when she becomes one immediately starts going for male victims instead. Wasn’t the original werewolf connected to some sort of Christian group or something? There’s a theme of werewolves attacking others along some sort of line of sexuality or morality - Madison to the men that threaten her (after being attacked by her neighbour and given that one bite in a parallel to sexual assault  _anyway_  since she was violated by it) and then the emphasis on the fact that the original victims were all sex workers who were, I dunno, seen as a morally grey area he didn’t mind eating their hearts because who would miss them, the old serial killers kill prostitutes theme >.>

It’s kind of uncomfortable how easy it is to get at this metaphor of it as an expression of sexual violence. Ugh. :P

Dean is super excited to be killing it though - he sees it as a nice uncomplicated monster where they know the rules and how to take it down (which spells  _doom_  for the simplicity of the episode any time he says that upfront :P) but the werewolf they’re thinking of before the Madison complication is a metaphorical sexual predator and fits human serial killer patterns aside from taking the hearts by necessity rather than as a trophy: we have the crossover with the police treating it like a human crime and able to find the corpses month after month without thinking anything strange is going on. To Sam n Dean the evil of it is blatant and there’s no moralising about the main werewolf: it’s all on Madison’s side where she’s the victim that it gets awful.

* * *

Let’s meet Madison! \o/

She has a nice house.

Shame about the creepy werewolf there. He blatantly has a vibe - he gets all close to her and then Dean watches him go all the way out the door like he’s a threat despite how mild his appearance is, and then Madison immediately sort of excuses/apologises for his presence by saying he’s sweet and came to check on her, which honestly feels like the answer to an unasked “is this guy bothering you?”

Which is especially terrible since he’s the one who assaulted her by turning her into a werewolf, so it’s sort of building up this picture of how creepy “nice guys” get close and even if they give off this threatening sort of sense where people recognise their presence is uncomfortable, they still get excused and allowed to sit in your front room, as long as they’re pretending to be good people (his t-shirt is even more ridiculously ‘look I am good Christian guy’ than I remembered.)

* * *

Then Sam makes that point of comparing Dean (silently) to the over-enthusiastic boss. Coming so soon after we saw how Sam sees Dean with drunk girls in Tall Tales, I feel like there is a lot of silent judgement coming from this corner. Which… In the case of Madison’s awful boss, he was obviously way over the line, and at this point in the show at least with Dean picking people up in bars, it always generally seems to be willing women who were there looking for a hook up. His more general flirting/checking people out is more widely ranging, but I do kind of feel this is showing us a difference in their morality/inclinations, especially with Sam never picking girls up that way (even when Dean finds girls with enthusiastic friends for Sam :P), conflating the way Dean flirts with everything with his habits of picking people up… Sam spends all of season 1 in a “just had a tragic end of a relationship” mood and so his lack of interest in that season was totally handwaved by Jess, but new we’re deep into season 2 they’re giving us indications that he really does just work differently and doesn’t want the same things as Dean when it comes to hook ups.

(They still only show the kinda romantically coded hook ups on screen for them though, so while Sam hasn’t had any action since Jess died and Dean’s hooked up apparently lots of times, we’re still leaving this season basically just Dean x Cassie and Sam x Madison as on-screen stuff for the whole show. It’s just that Sam’s ONLY hook up is a romantic one.)

* * *

Ah right so Kurt probably isn’t a werewolf since we’re put onto his case so soon? It’s conflating sexual threat with the potential to be the werewolf openly now - after what she says about him fighting with her boss and being so possessive over her, they have this quick exchange:

> DEAN: So, what do you think?
> 
> SAM: Stalker ex-boyfriend? He hates the boss. And he was there that night.
> 
> DEAN: Think he’s our dog-faced boy?
> 
> SAM: Well, it’s a theory.
> 
> DEAN: We’ve had worse.
> 
> SAM: Yeah.

In the process this totally overlooks that she has her own motivation to subconsciously want her ex boss dead, as she’s not deemed a threat since she is a victim and someone who was being squabbled over by men who both pose their own uncomfortable threats to her. I guess, maybe, overlooking her right to be monstrous, that is, rightfully angry that the men in her life would treat her that way, and prioritising the disgusting men in her life’s priority to express their anger over their property argument when she’d declared to both of them she didn’t want to be their property in the first place?

* * *

*cut to Madison looking out of her window to see Kurt staring back at her* *Madison sinks away in fear* 

I’d feel a whole lot better about her right to express her anger subconsciously that inevitably comes with the other kill she makes if I didn’t know what came to her as a result of it. >.>

* * *

But OBVIOUSLY Kurt is a decent enough guy - look at him with multiple cute children and doing middle class boat stuff with an indistinguishable pink blob of elderly friend/relative!

* * *

*creepy werewolf cam watching them from inside the flat*

If it’s Madison, then that shows at least some awareness from her not to claw their faces off, since they’ve never threatened her and she came all the way out here to eat Kurt.

Ah, so she spooked because they came in and went and hid behind the dumpster and then unfortunately mauled the cop who was threatening her.

* * *

Okay, Dean was passionately invested in that rock paper scissors game. :P Is he a good enough of an actor to have been worried about Sam wandering off alone to investigate a werewolf, and assumed he’d be safer indoors, and then gone through the  _whole_  charade? WHO KNOWS.

But yeah there’s a theory he loses rock paper scissors deliberately every time to protect Sam: so far in instances where they’ve squabbled over the doing of something it’s been almost entirely Dean making Sam do unpleasant stuff while avoiding touching gross things or angling to stay with the attractive women they meet above actual safety concerns…

Considering this whole episode is about Madison’s agency and men squabbling over her raising her ire, this… doesn’t seem the best start. Sam wins and gets to sit around in her house in her space.

Juuust like the creepy werewolf was doing at the beginning of the episode, although in Sam’s case he genuinely does want to look after her.

* * *

She catches on to him checking her out and immediately dumps a basket of panties on him, which freaks Sam out… Slightly less violent reasserting of her position there. :P She’s got his number now as someone who at least doesn’t  _want_  to be skeevy and is aware of the violation of filling up her living space, so making him really uncomfortable about that and seeing how he reacts to her laundry at least puts her in some form of higher ground where she can see she has some control and can make him move. I think the smile she gives herself can be seen as thinking he’s kind of sweet for being so awkward about it, but probably also relief he’s not like the other men we know in her life, who’d probably have been disgusting in the same situation. (Which… she probably wouldn’t have done it to them and probably already guessed from how awkward Sam was about being caught checking her out etc that he was safe.)

* * *

Dean makes fun of Sam for just sitting there not knowing what to say. Like Sam judging Dean for hitting on everything that moves, Dean judges Sam for not being fun enough, or to suggest morality as Sam suggested lack of in Dean’s direction, being too good to hit on her.

Dean asks what she’s wearing and Sam hangs up on him. I get the feeling we’re having a surface level Dean characterisation day. Prooobably still just teasing Sam about being alone with a girl, but it does kind of put him on the side of the men seeing Madison as an object this episode. Kinda one part glad he didn’t stay with her, one part feeling he wouldn’t  _actually_  behave badly to her if they were alone in her house and was the one who was the focus of the episode and getting sympathetic character development, although it would be a different and probably tenser dynamic - Sam is established so much more better at acting as the sympathetic one towards people  _anyway_  especially coming off of last episode (and I guess Tall Tales with the exaggerated sympathy for that totally random, not-emotionally-troubled guy emphasising an at least halfway true character trait :P), so he would be a better choice for this even if it wasn’t all about the weird inevitability someone will try it on with Madison by the end of the day.

* * *

*Madison practically piles on top of Sam to watch TV instead of making Sam move* Yeah, she’s definitely getting more comfortable about having him there. :P

* * *

I feel if Dean had been here instead then he and Madison would have bonded over the TV show because Dean was already watching it and deeply emotionally invested in all the characters. :P

Sam is leaning the joys of watching TV for fun. I suppose he’s always completely ignored it when Dean watches in the same room as him. 

* * *

“You’ve seen my entire underwear collection” Um. Madison. Honey… Are you telling Sam you’re not wearing underwear? I don’t know if that was really saucy, an unintentionally revealing exaggeration or you admitting you’re one of those human disasters who waits too long to do a load of laundry. :P

* * *

Sam compliments her books and stuff, which is one of those things I personally find annoying like, “why do you date dweebs who wouldn’t know what your books are by the way I recognise and approve all your books you are up to my intellectual standards and therefore we are clearly more compatible because I am nice and read books too.” Which on one level is how making a connection with people works, but on the other hand when someone makes a  _comparison_  like that I get all >.>

It’s interesting that a little bit of intellectual snobbery has been in both of Sam’s relationships we’ve seen develop on screen, with him showing off art history knowledge to Sarah and proving them intellectual equals on that front with their introductory art nerd sparring. And then obviously Jess was someone he met at college, which whatever she was doing there, means she’s passed an arbitrary level of smart chick standards.

Down this end of his character development he’s still definitely got a lot of lingering social aspiration.

* * *

Ah of course this is where that clip of Dean at the strip club is from. Dean enjoying himself there is paralleled to the creepy stalker ex, so another link between Dean and the skeevy guys this episode, although Kurt looks like he  _really_  isn’t having any fun there while Dean’s completely distracted enjoying himself. Throw in the Trickster’s illusions and Season 2 has taken a really skeevy turn in the middle of the season.

* * *

Aaand now they know that Madison is the werewolf. And Kurt’s a big pile of red stringy bits. No loss there. :P

* * *

*wakes up after a night with a strange guy in the house with no clothes and a cut on her arm* “Uh, Sam, where are my pyjamas?!” *Sam hastily runs off and locks all the doors* “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you.”

…

Next moment she’s tied to a chair and he’s holding a gun.

(Why did she need to take her clothes off? I suppose the blood? She was wearing clothes when she was a werewolf since it’s a mostly-human transformation…)

Seriously why did they end up sleeping together? Ever? Roll back up a few scenes:

> SAM: What were you doing with Kurt?
> 
> MADISON: [after a pause] I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like he introduced himself, like, “Hi, I’m possessive and controlling and I like to punch people. Wanna be my girlfriend?”
> 
> [They laugh.]
> 
> SAM: Yeah, well, I guess we all make mistakes.

Argh Madison you are too good for men who won’t treat you right and it doesn’t matter Sam’s heart is in the right place he is currently  _traumatising_  you while you are still unaware you are a werewolf and you think he’s just a sexual predator like all the other dickbag men in your life.

*flips over to rabidly protective of Madison*

* * *

I mean already cared but now I’m  _majorly distressed_.

* * *

> DEAN: Like a really hot Incredible Hulk. Come on, dude, she ganked her boss and her ex-boyfriend. That doesn’t sound rash and unconscious.
> 
> SAM: Yeah, but what if it was, Dean? I mean, what if some animal part of her brain saw both those guys as threats? Hell, the cop, too.
> 
> DEAN: What are you, the Dog Whisperer now?
> 
> SAM: Look, man, I just… I don’t know, there, there, there was something in her eyes.
> 
> DEAN: Yeah, she’s killing people!
> 
> SAM: But if she has no control over it—
> 
> DEAN: Exactly. She can’t control it. Even if she’s telling the truth, it’s not gonna change anything.
> 
> SAM: I’m not putting a bullet through some girl’s chest who has no idea what’s happening.
> 
> DEAN: Sam, she’s a monster, and you’re feeling sorry for her?
> 
> SAM: Maybe I understand her.

Next on Lizzy’s ongoing struggle to like Heart at  _all_ : “really hot” from Dean again, while simultaneously making jokes about dogs - okay, so he’s still waaay away from being routinely sympathetic to monsters and hearing them out first but still. I’m annoyed about his whole characterisation this episode and finding it hard to be charitable. :P

And then Sam saying he understands. Um, no, you have her tied to a chair sobbing about strange men assaulting her: she doesn’t even  _get_ that she’s a monster yet, as far as she’s concerned she’s a normal human girl. You’re dealing with a long struggle against your own nature and it’s made you empathetic to monsters, yes, but not to crying human girls.

…

I should really shut down my brain and just watch this through. It’s a hot day. :P

* * *

They’re circling around her as they verify when she got bitten, in a really sinister way.

* * *

Sam offers to stay with her again.

I think maybe watching Roadkill right before this is a bad transition, since both have a strong focus on a female character… Molly might be obsessed with her husband and as surrounded by dudes as Madison, but she’s got agency despite being dead and unaware of it, even as Sam n Dean are lying to her, she’s learning and helping them, and comes to a good solid emotional conclusion and moves on, by definition on her own terms and because she had powerful emotional closure. Then Madison they burst into the life of, treat this way, and they’re talking about killing her because they have to, making the choice outside the room she’s in talking in low whispers. Sam says he’ll guard her again and the whole time he’s with her it’s on the understanding with Dean (but not Madison) that he’ll shoot her if she does anything. I remember she comes to the decision herself at the end but Sam has to be the one to shoot her - she insists on it - and blah blah it’s all emotionally gutting for our tragic crying male main character.

Going back to the thoughts I had at the beginning about it being a metaphor for sexual crime, her being unknowingly bitten is honestly a close metaphor to being given a horrible STD and then she unknowingly kills others because of it: on receiving her true chronic diagnosis the only option for her is death, which makes all her talk about how her life changed for the better after the mugging that much more depressing.

…

Honestly I can see why all the later werewolves were given a huge depth new of lore to make them more in control and/or at least not oblivious of the fact they were changing - e.g. in Bitten we see all the werewolves at various times watching their first transformations on camera and documenting and learning about what’s happened to them.

Madison’s total lack of agency in her fate and then grim assisted suicide is  _horrendously_  dark.

* * *

Oh, great the creepy neighbour apparently had no idea he was doing it. I forgot about that. Uugh. He  _must_  have been aware something was happening to him if it was month after month after month, not just his first ever transformations. Like, Madison woke up realising she’d taken all her clothes off in the night - if Sam n Dean weren’t around she would have had to notice the strange pattern eventually?

> DEAN: It was sort of sad, actually. Glen had no clue what was going on. Hey, why do you think he turned Madison instead of just killing her in the first place?
> 
> SAM: I don’t know. I mean, he kind of seemed to have a thing for her.
> 
> DEAN: Maybe his primal instinct did, too. Maybe he was looking for a little, uh, hot breeding action.
> 
> SAM: Yeah. Something like that.

I don’t like that he’s excused of it like that especially since that bite on Madison was so neat and obviously meant to transform her too. If everything they do as werewolves is the subconscious coming to the front it definitely says that on some level her creepy neighbour  _wanted_  her and the werewolf part of him did it so he could be closer…

I suppose the more surface level commentary is that dudes want to be creeps and kinda are but  _really_ will be if they get this primal part of their brain doing everything, and women are enlightened and kill creeps and people who threaten them and get this retribution or whatever.

I just… really don’t like this episode. I’ve never been super comfortable about it, but I’ve also never sat down and thought about why. :S

* * *

I’m also personally offended about how shiny Madison’s hair is after spending a day tied to a chair and then a night clawing up a cupboard. Her fringe is still flat and all pointing in one direction. I mean they could have at least had her run a hand messily through the front of her hair.

* * *

I guess they just leave her alone to emotionally cope with the fact she was a werewolf and killed 3 people.

… Which they didn’t outright tell her but she knows about her boss and hearing about Kurt won’t be too difficult if she returns to her normal life…

* * *

> DEAN: Don’t “whatever” me, man, you liked her. Maybe, uh—
> 
> SAM: Dean, she thought I was a stark-raving lunatic.
> 
> DEAN: You saved her life.
> 
> SAM: Yeah, but she doesn’t know that.

Dean and his hero gets the girl thing. >.>

Sam actually respecting that doing heroic things doesn’t mean an entitlement to sex. He’s definitely very respectful of Madison and does all the right things to make it not a creepy come on at any point by saying they’ll go and leave her alone forever and all that jazz.

Then they sit like stalkers (she has a  _history_ of  _being stalked_ ) outside her house in a conspicuous car. (Madison may be one of the few characters to point out how bad an idea it is :P)

* * *

I like this shot of Dean putting down the gun on the table and then it focussing to Madison AND Sam on top of it:

Obviously there’s a parallel of Sam in Madison not just in his general fear of being a monster, but in the fact that she’s got a save her or kill her literal exact same thing as Sam on her, and Dean putting the gun down here reminds you he could kill Madison OR Sam - it’s a strong thematic reminder of the main arc, and since it’s been a couple of episodes since we had Dean confronted with this in any way since the last couple of episodes were light on their angst of the season, a good reminder that it is weighing on Dean too.

And the way Sam talks to Madison about all the stuff with being a monster is really good and sympathetic from his POV once they’re even remotely on the same level. Her black out memory on being a werewolf is like Born Under A Bad Sign was for Sam, and nearly had him killed for being evil. His sense of evil lurking within him where it might lash out at any moment and he doesn’t  _want_  to hurt people but he’s scared it will happen anyway, is something he sees exactly in Madison’s state. When it comes down to it, Sam insists on being the one to have to kill her, not Dean, and it spares Dean having to kill in a way reminiscent of John’s warning, therefore another aversion of him ever killing Sam, and by making Sam kill a Sam mirror, has a reflection of the end of season where he will die, but not by Dean’s hand (but by one of the special children, who are all a nature nurture discussion on Sam at the end of the day).

And like that’s 2 paragraphs of main plot stuff dragged out of a whole long episode of stuff that makes me unhappy. :P

* * *

There’s some really great scenery shots of San Francisco here.

(PS this is the longest full moon ever. We must be WAY past the 3 day mark of it being full?)

* * *

> SAM: No. I know I scared the crap out of you, all right? I–I mean, I tied you to a chair.
> 
> MADISON: That’s right up there with me scratching up your face.

Uh…huh.

Werewolves aren’t even contagious from being scratched.

* * *

Okay now Madison jumped out of a window naked.

* * *

Oh she stole his shirt.

Good thinking, werewolf!Madison. You’re clearly aware of human modesty customs.

Maybe she got up and went to make a cup of tea or something before she turned and thought she’d do the cute thing where she puts on his shirt.

* * *

> DEAN: Sammy, I don’t think we’ve got a choice here anymore.
> 
> SAM: What?
> 
> DEAN: I hate to say it. She’s a sweet girl, but part of her is—
> 
> SAM: Evil?
> 
> DEAN: Yeah.
> 
> SAM: Yeah, that’s what they say about me, Dean! So me you won’t kill, but her you’re just gonna blow away?

~plot things~

* * *

*Sam desperately bargaining with Madison to say he will find a way to save her*

*Dean listening to it all* *definitely thinking about how hard it will be to kill Sam*

Sam makes a point of saying that he has to be the one to do it. It’s not been designated or fated by anyone, but it’s just somehow more emotionally right.

*Sam has got really damp* He really drips everywhere when he cries. 

Dean sheds a single tear and that’s the end of the episode. Phew. :P I suppose the last shot being Dean does make it about him and Sam and all that jazz. As much as it hurt Sam to go through this, you’ve always got to pay attention to the main plot in your episode structure. :P Yep. That’s what this was all about.

*sighs and moves on* I knew I wasn’t fond of this episode before I dived in, I’m not sure what I expected. :P


	18. 2x18

Or: Do you ever think about the fact if this film actually got made, Dean’s name is probably somewhere deep in the credits with the other assistants?

I bet he went to see it and sat through all the credits and whooped when saw the names of friends he made on set. 

…

It probably came out some time when he was in Hell though knowing his luck.

* * *

I love how this episode opens with the worst scream ever captured on film, and lets you think for 3 seconds that this is going to be the worst episode in the show. :P Like oh my god this is the most cliche story and we’re just dropped right in the middle with no build up and why do we care about these kids, and this actress is  _terrible_. You have a very short window to save the episode before someone yawns and says “Wow, things are getting really tired on this show already,” and flips the channel.

* * *

I spent a lot of time squinting at the set here the first time I watched it and trying to work out if it was the woods from Roadkill or if that was actually filmed in real woods and they made a whole fake set for this. I get annoyed by how good camera magic can be whenever I see stuff filming film sets because it’s like  _how does anyone ever think that’s real_ and then you realise literally every film and TV show you watch will convince you something’s real.

* * *

I likewise spend a lot of time wondering if this is the actual set or if it’s the actual set but entirely populated with extras, or if it’s a fake movie set set. There’s presumably an easy answer to this somewhere, but  _I don’t actually want to know_.

* * *

Dean reminds us about Madison and Sam says he wants to work to take his mind off things, which is basically Sam’s entire motivation for the whole season, just substituting in a different thing he needs to not think about for a while depending on where we are in the season.

Dean is angling for a holiday again, wants to do the full tour and work later, and is sharing nerdy facts too obscure for the tour with the kid with the ice cream next to him, while Sam… Is expressing valid fourth wall fear about the Gilmore Girls set. Okay. Actually wants to get on with the case and was just seeing the tour as an excuse to get on set.

* * *

*buries face in this credit and rolls around*

I will stop the Edlund fangirling when never.

* * *

Then Dean has all the nerdy knowledge of the occult in popular culture, re: the haunting of the set of Poltergeist, while Sam has no idea.

“You know nothing of your cultural heritage, do you?”

This is just such a beautiful little line. Tiny universe building stuff - the rumours about this extend from our own universe, but in theirs it can be real, and if you know ghosts are real and you know about whatever awful stuff happened to Poltergeist, you’d know it’s very possible this actually happened with a real curse because why not.

The fact that Dean thinks of it as a cultural heritage though. It’s kind of a snide joke, but especially at the start of the season there were a lot of little things about hunters as a culture and especially hunters sort of mythologised as heroes within their own tiny sphere, where they have their sort of hero cowboy outlaw feel about what they do…

It’s like the season 3 Ghostfacers episode where they call the really famous haunted house like, their Grand Canyon. Noticeable because Dean was actually talking about knocking off and going to the Grand Canyon instead of hunting earlier this season, but when he actually starts knocking things off his bucket list, it’s something else from this hunter cultural heritage thing.

I just… Really like these little suggestions of their different mentality and way they relate to the world from the rest of us, and the idea of it as an actual culture… And these times when they actual relate to it  _as_  their culture. :D

* * *

Aw Dean’s first brush with being a PA.

Obviously the complaint about horror being too dark is the first random complaint that comes from the higher ups. :P 

She says squinting at the dark screen taking screenshots that come out murky and confusing.

* * *

What is Sam doing at this point? Dean’s getting well into it and Sam’s just disappeared?

* * *

He literally just pops up from nowhere like “So what did you find out?”

…

He probably sneaked over to the Gilmore Girls set to say hi. I remember the conspiracy post that suggests there’s no way to prove he  _wasn’t_  on the show during his Stanford years. :P

* * *

Dean and food. A story for the ages. I was going to say you could make him do anything with a well-stocked side table but that was literally the point of the angels’ beautiful room and that didn’t work.

He wanders off to chat up Tara with a mouthful of sandwich still. Gross, Dean.

I would like to point out the sandwich thing is apparently the most important moment of the episode based on the still used for its Supernatural wiki entry:

[http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=2.18_Hollywood_Babylon](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D2.18_Hollywood_Babylon&t=NDVlZDkzYzlmNzQ2ZDI5MzNiNzI3YTU3MzQ2OTZjZWNiZGVlY2VkMyxnWnZNdnZrMg%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F122952698598%2Fspn-hellatus-rewatch-2x18-or-do-you-ever-think&m=1)

* * *

Was this episode sponsored by Snapple?

* * *

Dean’s weirdly specific extremely dorky movie nerd knowledge. Deeean.

* * *

*giggling at the production guy practising his golf swing while they’re shooting*

The deer head is in the log cabin set!

* * *

I really like how the ghosts were black and white.

Because we know history was black and white until colour film was invented. It’s probably quite an interesting commentary on perception or the mythology of Hollywood or something - other ghosts from the time of black and white film would be in normal colour because they’ve got no relation to this, but because they’re movie ghosts, and the world knew them as black and white figures, and here on set where their images was captured in black and white?

* * *

Aaand Dean has got his PA headset and is devouring more of the free food. He has become fully assimilated.

Maybe it’s like a fairy thing - eat of their food and become them? Eat the burgers the angels offer and you’re going along with the plan. It’s probably no coincidence Cas yanked Dean away from giving up and sampling the burgers when he finally decided to rebel.

Sam doesn’t eat anything here and so he doesn’t get absorbed into movieland culture so much.

…

Yeah, I’m sold. Hollywood is fae.

* * *

“We don’t really work here.” “I feel like one of the team.” *Dean offers Sam a taquito*

So here’s the first of the long history of taquitos on the show, from here to Cas making them in the Gas n Sip to Dean making Death Mexican food. 

I am fascinated by the assimilation thing.

Dean is getting validation and food from this, and has found a job that he loves, surrounded by people he’s genuinely interacting with, being a hanger on to something he’s got a full nerdy obsession about… Genuinely seems to be forgetting there is a case as he gets caught up in all the details, and ignoring Sam trying to tell him the details of the case to listen over his headset and talk into it over Sam’s attempt to engage him about the job at hand.

This is super tragic considering he’s just doing hunting as an obligatory job right now because Sam asked him to and still at every opportunity Dean is either longing to not be doing this or is locked up in a motel room  _unable_  to be doing it. 

Like, here Sam is saying he went to the morgue. Like in Heart, Sam went to the morgue and left Dean behind because of his wanted criminal status. So Dean is being left to thrive in a fun environment where he’s losing track of the mission, while Sam does the actual expected parts of the job.

I just…

Baaah season 2 is hurting me. :P

* * *

Of course then Dean brings Sam to hear the EVP on the sound recordings and tells him about looking for EMF on site so he has actually done a relevant portion of his job, before kicking back. But wow does he generally seem to be giving off the signals of rejecting it right now :P

* * *

> DEAN They’re called dailies. I got it from Cindy. She’s kind of got this on-and-off thing going with Drew. He dubbed me an extra copy. 

Deeean.

The fact he knows it’s an on and off thing makes me convinced that they gossiped for a while as a way of him buttering her up for the CD. I just like the idea of Dean gossiping.

* * *

Although notice how he says “on and off” so he could have found out about where to get one from Cindy and then flirted with Drew for it if they were off. :P Hehehehe.

I’m awful, I’m sorry. 

* * *

Sam does research while Dean does PA stuff. He has his own designated walkie talkie.

* * *

Sam was the one who recognised the ghost this time, I’d guess knowing Sam’s patterns of knowing weird obscure facts, for the morbid factor not for the movie nerd factor.

* * *

Cut to the graveyard, where Dean is goofing around with a map he apparently legitimately paid for, looking for famous graves, and Sam is just trying to get the job done.

* * *

Bit of a higher class coffin than they normally see in their line of work.

* * *

I like how the guy says he can’t see a thing while on set because it’s so dark, but it’s lit with that perfect blue movie light that happens instead of darkness.

* * *

Poor Sam watching six hours of terrible movies.

The funny thing is Sam listened to the same scene for six hours without realising that the Latin invocation was interesting, and didn’t twig it until Dean was there too.

Sometimes you just really need someone to bounce off.

* * *

I think the cruellest thing they’ve ever done to Sam on this show is after 6 hours of watching he has to go tell the writer guy how much he loves the script.

You can  _see_  him die inside.

I’m counting it as a Winchester Death.

* * *

So the ritual they were chanting maybe/maybe not did anything to the ghosts since the guy responsible had his own ways of controlling them and was going after the producers independently of anything happening on screen (like, the deaths weren’t tied to anything the actors were doing in the actual movie)

And Sam just spotting that there was real lore involved was as far as that went.

* * *

“You are one hell of a PA.” This just in - hunting is part of being a PA. You can balance the lifestyle of being one with affecting the other. :P Dean just needs one of those portfolio careers.

But yeah, again with all the validation he gets here, for being himself/enjoying himself.

Isn’t the prison episode up next? Which again shows Dean falling right in and making himself at home in a very different, twisted way? It’ll be a good one to watch for comparison. :P Episodes do seem to often come in pairs like that.

* * *

It is funny how they defend the crappy writer/producer who ruined the script just on a matter of principle because they don’t like him. Every writer ever who resented their first tough edit is secretly agreeing with this. :P Like honestly this episode is a lesson about taking necessary criticism for the sake of good storytelling, but that doesn’t mean you have to like it.

* * *

It’s such a silly computer game ending where they’re using the cameras to shoot at the ghosts. It bothers me that phone cameras are randomly excellent back in 2008… Is this marketing for the phones? Or a completely unrealistic expectation for phones?

* * *

She’s using the same type of phone as they were in the new version of the film so maybe it was all a phone ad. :P

The bad writer wins, and takes a lesson in where to get his source material from? Or something? I don’t know.

* * *

Aaand Dean gets the girl and the guys walk off into the sunset and then a bit more into the actual sunset.

That was fun. :3


	19. 2x19

Or: okay but hear me out what if someone  _arrested_  a ghost and it went to  _prison_.

That is a terrible idea. 

* * *

Thinking of terrible ideas: if a metal room has a metal door welded shut,  _probably_  shouldn’t open it up.

Just a helpful suggestion.

* * *

This guard must be really short because the ghost turns out to be the nurse and there’s a shot where the back of the ghost’s head is looming over him. And he was looking up into the cell where the prisoner is looking right down from the window.

* * *

If this was an elaborate plan to get caught, why did they go to the really specific trouble of being arrested in the museum? Was it just because they wanted to cross something off their bucket list and dramatic heist seemed like a why not? I guess being deliberately caught thieving in an empty building (near the correct jail) is exactly the sort of victimless crime which gets immediate attention and high-profile treatment and doesn’t involve killing anyone just to get noticed. I guess they were just opening up cases to set off alarms in case they hadn’t tripped anything yet? And then just got distracted looking at all the cool stuff there.

I’ve seen several suggestions which make a lot of sense that Sam was studying anthropology on the side so his curiosity at the display makes sense, and I guess Dean just likes shiny things. :P

* * *

*waves at Victor*

I know Dean was already the more high profile brother since Skin, and Sam got his episode where he spent a great deal more screen time with the authorities, but I really like how Dean has this antagonism with Victor. Because of course they are both just doing their job and it’s all for the greater good… Just Victor doesn’t know it, and Dean doesn’t respect it. It’s great chemistry even just laying out the basic facts, before you start seeing them interacting.

I’d have liked way more of this, not going to lie. :P

* * *

Especially because’s all “I’m adorable.” Victor’s all “Nice to meet you, you take a good candid photo”

He had better mug shots this time as well.

* * *

Why isn’t grave desecration one of the more interesting charges? It really stands out amongst the charges as the most genuinely weird one? I feel like they should be asking a lot more questions about that.

* * *

> HENRIKSEN:  
> Near went nuts trying to find you. Ask him.
> 
> REIDY:  
> [Deadpans] He near went nuts.

I don’t know why but I cracked up for like 5 minutes about this. 

AU where Victor figured out the pattern that they always went places and got in trouble connected with the kind of specific news-worthy incidents that sign post a case, and started tracking cases like a hunter, but without working out that the patterns of drained or heartless bodies or whatever meant anything weird, just that if you looked out for those eventually the Winchesters would show up in town. Started pre-empting them and getting involved in hunts.

Accidental hunter Victor.

Wacky version of the AU where he never realises it’s ghosts or whatever and there’s always a semi-plausible explanation for what he sees, or he gets knocked out by the vampires before he sees fangs or whatever.

* * *

> PRISONER:  
> You’re mine, baby!
> 
> DEAN:  
> Don’t worry, Sam. I promise I won’t trade you for smokes.

Weirdly more disturbed by the implication Sam is Dean’s to trade by default.

…

Not in a Wincesty way, I have scrolled back up to add, though, you know, whatever you like. I just meant with regards to their power dynamic. Dean hasn’t been so overtly controlling of Sam this season - in fact if anything Sam’s exploiting Dean’s protective big brother traits to keep him around and on the job. I don’t think he would have gone anywhere without Sam after Croatoan - he panicked to get Sam back in Hunted - but he definitely hasn’t made an obvious choice to do anything other than follow Sam around and protect him, as evidenced by many instances where they’ve been split up/fought/Dean’s been disinclined or disallowed to do the job for various reasons since, which I’ve been dutifully documenting. Sam has been leaning into this trait of Dean’s - he consciously acknowledged it was what he was calling on when he asked Dean to keep hunting with him - and so in return Dean’s spent the whole season since just being the protective big brother and though he likes hunting and outwardly has been goofing off where he can and making it fun, there’s still the sense of protecting Sam being his only major motivation, with the saving people thing a secondary concern; something he’s always done, something he falls into because it’s his character type as a hunter, like muscle memory or something, but at the end of the day, the whole second half of the season seems to have Dean in it JUST for looking after Sam.

Which, yes, aside from being the character development towards selling his soul, would make Dean weirdly possessive and express the idea that he could trade Sam (or not) because he’s the one who makes the call on what happens to Sam, and it’s given him this sense of ownership, because, well, he’s got the responsibility of it.

* * *

> DEAN:  
> It’s 100 percent sure. I wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t. I mean, come on, man, this place has all the signs of a haunting. Innocent people are dead. Four so far.
> 
> SAM:  
> [laughs sarcastically] Yeah, innocent.
> 
> DEAN:  
> You from Texas all of a sudden? Just because these people are in jail, doesn’t mean they deserve to die. If we don’t stop this thing, people are going to continue to die. We do this job wherever it takes us.

Ahhh, their morality at play…

Sam always more sympathetic to monsters and willing to hear them out, Dean with the black and white views on them… Sam somehow with the more black and white views on social human stuff and bad people, Dean more sympathetic to the trials and tribulations of random humanity. (Like, even after saying he hates witches, in Malleus Maleficarum he gets alarmed when Sam suggests they kill the witches for a random other example that springs to mind.)

* * *

(Really random. Maybe I saw a gifset earlier or something to make me think of it :P I’m a season behind the main rewatch group >.>)

* * *

While we’re on the subject of morality:

> SAM:  
> Look, Dean, just be straight with me, all right? You’re doing this for Deacon.
> 
> DEAN:  
> Damn right.
> 
> SAM:  
> Well, you barely even know the guy.
> 
> DEAN:  
> We know he was in the Corps with Dad. We know he saved Dad’s life. We know we owe him.
> 
> SAM:  
> But don’t you think he’s asking a little much?
> 
> DEAN:  
> It doesn’t matter. We may not be saints, but we’re loyal and we pay our debts. Now, that means something to me, and it ought to you. I’m not thrilled about this either, man, but Deacon asked us to hunt this thing down, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Suddenly Dean’s morality is very clear when it’s to do with family and honour - and the whole military connection thing, which is like a second family bond, especially with the fight and die for each other thing, or the eternal gratitude of saving lives. Of course Sam as the one always rebellious to John’s upbringing would be the one doubting this is enough, while Dean takes it as a great sign of trust in the guy.

I always get a bit worried Deacon would turn bad on them when I can’t remember how this episode goes, just because it would be an awful thing to happen to Dean, but I think by this point I remember being wrong enough times to venture that the bond is played straight? 

* * *

Sam vs prison spaghetti, Dean happily tucking in.

This  _is_  a lot more like Hollywood Babylon than I thought - I’m glad I decided I might as well watch both in the same day. Again, we don’t see Sam eat, actively rejecting the food, and again Dean is shown fitting in in a process that really begins with the food he eats. Obviously there’s the whole aspect of Dean’s personality to do with his issues with food, gone over by many a meta writer, to do with his hunger and how he will always eat when he can get it, but in this case it’s also the first step to showing him belonging. It’s interesting as I was saying, that the face of the crimes they commit is Dean with Sam just as the accessory, and it’s Dean who fits in and Sam who worries about Dean weirdly fitting in and adapting.

(But on the first point - Dean says the chicken isn’t half bad, and while he was tucking into gourmet sandwiches and the like last episode so we know he’s got a pretty good idea of what nice food is supposed to taste like, I think he’s still kind of basing his ideas of food on the kind of terrible, repetitive food of his childhood and the road food he continues to eat. Back in Simon Says he was muttering about wanting to eat properly cooked food for once. 

Meanwhile Sam’s understood to have got the better food (or any food) where Dean could spare it as kids, and spent time out at college where he’d have eaten a normal, healthy diet. We haven’t really seen him obsessed with salads yet - that seems to be a later trait - but with Sam’s ongoing class struggle, and his social aspiration where he’s got used to better food, he feels the luxury to reject eating food if he thinks it isn’t up to his standards, and offers Dean to finish the rest of it if he wants it.)

* * *

Always like the moments where they surprise a random member of the public by being trained fighters… Sam vs that school bully, Dean vs the huge prison guys… It’s not a fair fight. :P

Sam looks like such a small nerdy kid compared to all these guys he’s been left alone with. I’d almost worry about him, but… See literally this same point.

* * *

It’s almost amusing how Dean actually answers with his real name when they ask it from him. It’s got to the point in later seasons where demons and witches and angels are the only ones who ever know their real names as a hang up from the apocalypse, and every human person they ever meet knows them under an alias. Seeing them undercover as themselves is just surreal.

* * *

Ooh, that’s Deacon there, threatening Dean. So they’re acting out a really elaborate prisoner/guard roleplay. 

* * *

Aww, Dean getting bored in solitary. Another Steve McQueen reference for the season.

> DEAN:  
> Well, so much for the bonding in solitary moment. 

He actually succeeds in bonding with another prisoner later, who dies of the ghost?

I think it’s interesting this is an episode about ghosts killing people in prison. I can’t remember what her motivation was - if she wasn’t just evil - although perhaps she had Sam’s instinctive mentality that they all deserve it but actually acted that out. Anyway, compare down the line to 10x14 with Cain killing that guy in prison. Basically killing to clean up humanity a bit.

Of course, thanks to that episode we know apparently it’s statistical that Cain’s descendants are likely to be the criminal type, and Dean is obviously connected to that story way more than Sam. So even all the way back here we have tiny little thematic links to the good season 10 stuff. :D

I think Dean is reaching out and bonding mostly from boredom, but also he recognises the humanity in these guys, or wants to, but also perhaps connects with them for the stuff that makes them dangerous too.

Anyway when the other guy dies Dean looks horrified and regretful that he couldn’t do anything about it - you can see if he’d been able he’d have fought to keep him alive no matter what he had done to end up in prison and fighting Dean. When it comes to protecting humanity from what Dean perceives to be proper evil, humanity always comes first.

* * *

Viiictor.

:D

Oh, Daniels (their assigned public defender) is here asking the questions about the weirdness of the case, which she’s noticed right away. Victor is like “welcome to my world” so he is actually aware of how there are a lot of weird patterns about the instances.

Okay so Victor’s job is to catch them and hers is to defend them, so he would look for them to be guilty and she’d be looking for the loophole. He’s dismissing the evidence of people saying Sam n Dean saved them as the people being crazy while Daniels coming to it with a sympathetic eye and trying to build up a picture of what’s happening using all the evidence and needing to ask more questions about the stuff that doesn’t gel with the surface reading.

I find it interesting Daniels (a female lawyer) references the female cop and a female witness to build up this picture, in contrast to Victor’s ideas.

Where, the surface reading is:

> HENRIKSEN:  
> And, all I know is, wherever these guys go, people die. It’s that simple. 

So he hasn’t looked beyond the case - e.g. the obvious one would be how the jewellery thefts in the area of the bank followed an apparently unrelated pattern while all following the exact same pattern.

But the grave desecrations would all come from ghost incidents, which generally have had historical precedence connected to them.

I’m just saying: she’s coming to them for more info as they have the power to do this investigation where she can’t: if Victor looked harder he’s figure it out pretty quickly, but he’s working on a wrong assumption, or, rather, the  _easy_ , surface level assumption. He  _knows_  the inconsistencies are there and that in multiple situations Sam n Dean present a more complicated case than it seems, and yet he won’t work past his initial impression of them…

Argh, this is weirdly frustrating for some reason. :P

* * *

Sam bonds with Randall and finds out the full story of what happened to Moody.

Of course, Sam is the one who brought him up first, earlier in the episode, and is following this line of investigation: it’s Sam and his interest in serial killers again. (He mentioned earlier that he was a satanist too, so double points for Sam’s random knowledge of weird occult stuff, plus a nod to Lucifer. :P)

Sam asking how much blood there was for the point of the case but unintentionally makes him look even more interested in serial killers than normal - and he already angled this conversation by being super curious about what happened to a famous serial killer, for the sake of the case, but I bet Sam already knew who he was before they started researching notorious inmates.

* * *

> DEAN:  
> He walked right by me. Lucas wasn’t so lucky. I mean, the way he was screaming… The guy was a jerk, but he didn’t deserve to go like that. 

Dean *still* looks upset about this the next day. :<

(this is the scene where he’s cleaning up playing poker and getting handfuls of cigarettes)

(Sam says he doesn’t even smoke, so I’m continuing on with my theory Dean quit on grabbing Sam from college and this is a present tense thing not a blanket statement about his character :P)

* * *

> DEAN:  
> [smiling] That’s the Sammy I know. Come on, man, you’re like Clint Eastwood from “Escape From Alcatraz.”
> 
> SAM:  
> The problem is, if even if we do find something, how are we gonna burn it? We don’t have any accelerant.
> 
> DEAN:  
> It’s a good thing I’m like James Garner from “The Great Escape.”

Dean is such a movie nerd. He’s probably been mentally running through all his favourite movies in his head since they came up with this plan.

* * *

Hehe Sam throwing Dean’s “really pretty sure” line back at him.

* * *

Okay the guy Dean calls “Tiny” is a liiittle tougher than some of the other inmates compared to Dean… He kinda picked the wrong person to get in a fight with there. :P

(Also Deacon really thumps Dean up - obviously he can’t act like he’s special or anything and just has to go along with whatever happens to Dean like he’s another prisoner and hope it’s what Dean wanted to do for his plan, but even so :P If nothing else we’ve got a guy paralleled to John by association of being together in the military, who’ll happy beat Dean if needs be, even if it is just for show in this hyper masculine violent culture they’ve entered. Uuh.)

* * *

Thinking of Dean and food, I’ve read some pretty depressing things about his line, “they’re just doughnuts, they’re not love.” as part of his projecting his insecurities package deal. (Compare: leviathan!Dean spilling that he thinks burgers are as good as sex.)

* * *

Sam does an extremely low budget salt n burn, proving that all their fancy lighters and big bags of rock salt are just for show and they’re pretty elitist about their hunting equipment. :P

* * *

Dean apologises to Tiny and has an actual emotional bonding moment with him.

And of course he gets a story in return about brothers and an abusive father. Hm.

* * *

For the ongoing symbolism of Dean and hearts, the ghost goes for him and he spends a fair bit of time lying around recovering from a near heart attack. I suppose we have Faith, him going into cardiac arrest at one point in My Time of Dying, and now this, that I can quickly count off.

* * *

Poor Tiny. :(

Dean gets even more upset and angry about Tiny dying.

“Poor giant Tiny.”

* * *

What I like about the cut from Sam demanding what they’re going to do because they’re stuck in prison and can’t research (aaaah Sam is cut off from RESEARCH) to them questioning Randall is that Sam is the one who made friends with Randall in the first place and would know he had info, so it’s more likely he realised they could go ask him, unless Dean took Sam by the shoulders and shook him and reminded him they already had someone who knows loads about the prison history who is amenable to a chat.

> SAM:  
> Heart attacks?
> 
> RANDALL:  
> Yeah. Story was Glockner had it out for cons

Yeeep there’s the textual nod she was doing it from her twisted sense of morality.

* * *

> SAM:  
> Right. But then how’s she tied in with the old cellblock? And if she’s going after cons, why kill that one guard?
> 
> DEAN:  
> I did hear in the yard that that guard wasn’t exactly squeaky clean, so, maybe she’s going after anybody that breaks a law. Like me.
> 
> SAM:  
> You ‘heard in the yard’?
> 
> DEAN:  
> Yeah.
> 
> SAM:  
> Dean, does it … bother you at all, how easily you seem to fit in here?
> 
> DEAN:  
> No, not really.

I’m kinda amusing myself to think she was making an early start on Cain’s bloodline almost by accident but then when she became a ghost she could just sort of sense it and that was what was guiding her choice to kill.

* * *

Obviously there is also interesting social stuff to talk about for Dean fitting in well at the prison without leaning on the random magic cursed bloodline explanation from 8 seasons away, but shh. :P

* * *

Heh, this is the same Dean was doing in The Usual Suspects with his lawyer there - casually asking for help with the case and ignoring all his legal advice. :P

> MARA DANIELS:  
> Why should I? Henriksen says you’re a monster.
> 
> DEAN:  
> I’m a monster? I’m – [laughs] Well, he’s wrong, okay? I’m not what they say I am.
> 
> MARA DANIELS:  
> Everybody says that.
> 
> DEAN:  
> Yeah. Look, if you’re as smart a P.D. as I think you are, then you can tell with just one look whether or not your clients are guilty, okay, just like that. So I want you to look at me, really look, and you tell me – am I guilty? (pause) We’re not the bad guys.

Who’s the monster, huh? ~theeeemes~

* * *

Aaand even though Dean knows it’s Deacon and they’re now alone, he still flinches away from him even though Deacon feels he’s just goofing around playing at being the menacing guard. Dean, having been hit several times by him, is less comfortable with his presence when he and Sam are handcuffed and Deacon is still acting like the big scary Warden. I mean, they could  _probably_  take him in a fight but wow does his make Dean look vulnerable in front of him for a moment (and Sam is off to the side forgotten for the time being)

> DEAN:  
> Deacon, you are beating the holy hell out of me, man.
> 
> DEACON:  
> Sorry, Dean. I thought I was going easy on you. [DEAN laughs.] Just, uh, trying to make it look real.
> 
> DEAN:  
> Yeah. Well, mission accomplished.

* * *

I’m still confused about if Sam n Dean orchestrated that fight or not. They seem pretty trapped with no agency and it’s up to Deacon to enact the plan as the one with the power to move them around with impunity within the prison… He could have been watching for a moment to grab them or that could have been a telegraphed sign… But it flowed so organically from their conversation it did seem like a genuine fight, in which case Dean was getting deeply invested in the case to the point of recklessness about staying and possibly getting taken by whichever state claimed him first for the murders there, and getting trapped in the system… Sam who’s the accessory to the crimes is in much less danger to stay another day if Dean left ( _especially_  if Dean escaped and left Sam behind! :P) but he’s way more concerned about getting out, since he never got invested the same way.

(I guess it’s interesting to look at with Sam taking on the charge to be a hunter all season with Dean’s interest flagging, but when it’s about John there’s this reverse: Sam never quite got the same programming as Dean and so he’s just feeling that much less obligated - he’s not disinterested or giving up, but he’s valuing their safety and freedom over throwing themselves in too deep for stupid honour reasons. Meanwhile this does seem like Dean’s actual call to return to hunting with enthusiasm, with the spectre of John pushing them onto the case, and therefore his emotional investment is through the roof compared to basically the entire season…) 

* * *

Oh, Sam says, “Do you want to have this fight for real?” as they start arguing about the exact same thing. So they WERE expressing their actual positions in the fight, but with the understanding Deacon was going to grab them, and the fight just happened to be Dean actually resisting going along with the plan that staging the fight was enacting.

*headache*

* * *

> DEACON:  
> Boys, uh… I can’t thank you enough for this. I know it was asking a lot but you still came through. Your daddy … raised you right.
> 
> SAM:  
> Well, we owed you.

In the last moments Sam randomly comes through on the random code they were honouring. Wonder if the mention of John had anything to do with that. :P Dean just goes with these things instinctively - Sam needs a proper reminder if he’s going to try really hard to do what John wanted?

* * *

The timeline is weird here. Before he sees the lawyer they have 5 hours to do it in - Dean seems to be coming back from talking to her when he rejoins Sam in the yard, and then Deacon hands them the useful info left by the lawyer, which she would have had to research for them. At the very least they skipped at least 3 time blocks where the lawyer would have had to come to the prison, gone back to investigate, research, and drive back to the prison with the info. :P I suppose that could all have taken 5 hours and Sam n Dean didn’t see much of each other in the intervening time.

* * *

The funny thing about this is that if they’d researched better all the info and the nurse’s bones were on the outside the entire time, so it was an exercise in being detained for character building reasons or something, and that amuses me. Pointless, but they wanted to do a prison episode and so it happened. :P

(It would be fun to compare to the episode where they join Martin in the psychiatric hospital, and go right through the process where it breaks and exposes things in both of them, and the structure means the only way out was through; the futility of this episode’s plot is vaguely troublesome to my storytelling senses but not, I guess, a problem for a story where they really have to contain stuff like this within one episode and visit ideas for thematic reasons only. :P)

* * *

Though thinking of things that need questioning… Parking Baby  _right_  outside the prison? Really? That always gets me.

* * *

Also how they stop to change their jackets instead of leaping right into the car and changing later.

* * *

Aargh, I hope their lawyer is okay :S She put her job on the line there. They don’t catch Sam n Dean because of the info she gives them so…

Victor’s surprised “research!?” face. Heheh. He’s still sooo far off the mark. Although I suppose he’s got to realise at this point that the grave desecrations are, for whatever reason, apparently important enough to break out of prison for, since he’s got to put together her saying she looked up a grave for them and their past history.

I seriously wonder what he thought about all that.  _I just want to have some evidence someone somewhere wanted to know what was going on with the grave desecrations_.

It keeps me up at night. :P

Victor seriously was not curious enough to be any good at his job.

* * *

I mean the logical thing to do after the fact when they’re left trying to work anything out would be ask her what she looked up, and then look it up themselves to find the actual grave, and then maybe see what happened to the grave…

* * *

The nurse is late - I swear she appeared at exactly half past in the other instances and she’s here at like 8:34. :O

* * *

Hahahahaha they’re talking about going deep after this episode.

Does a parallel universe count as deep enough? :3

(I know that’s not exactly what happens next, but Dean  _is_  pretty off the radar…)


	20. 2x20

AU where…

* * *

The opening montage basically shows a quick run down of everything that  _didn’t_  happen in this AU :3

Particularly awful: if last episode was a subtextual call to return to work for Dean, this episode  _forces_  him to choose to take the job back on whole-heartedly… Not like he’s going to be left with  _any_  choice soon, but… 

Anyway the last lines of the opening are those from 2x10: 

“I’m not just going to ditch the job.” “Screw the job, I’m sick of the job anyway. We don’t get paid, we don’t get thanked. The only thing we get is bad luck.” 

Which I’m assuming based on his behaviour is how he’s been operating ever since, up until last episode when the memory of John spurred him to be finally more into the case than Sam… And that takes us to here.

* * *

Hey! The new licence plates on Baby! 

One thing I’d have really liked is for Dean to have kept the original ones and then in the Bunker in his room to have hung them up like people sometimes do.

* * *

I was joking at the end of last episode about them needing to dive into an alternate universe to avoid the authorities for a while, but this does start with Sam peering suspiciously at a police car outside their motel.

* * *

Hahaha, look, an episode where we find out exactly what the monster is in the first few seconds. I’m sure this will be easy then!

Today on Sam’s extremely rare pop culture moments:

> SAM   
> I don’t know. I guess they’re powerful enough. But not exactly like Barbara Eden in harem pants. I mean, Djinn have been feeding off people for centuries. They’re all over the Koran.

* * *

> DEAN   
> You know, I think I saw a place a couple miles back. I’m gonna go check it out.
> 
> SAM   
> Wait – no, no, no, no, no. Come pick me up first.
> 
> DEAN   
> Naw, I’m sure it’s nothing. I just wanna take a look around.

Listen to Sam, Dean! 

It’s always bothered me how easily Dean decides to do something reckless, BUT: he’s been cooped up all season. Last episode he was very reckless with their long-term future not as convicted criminals in prison, and we’re 2 episodes from him giving up his entire self to Sam. His suicidal mindset from Croatoan hasn’t been challenged or shown to have improved: he’s just not talked about it for a dozen episodes while putting on a game face. So I guess him wandering off into an abandoned monster-filled warehouse on a whim isn’t too strange.

* * *

The ongoing series of Lizzy’s favourite images:

The typewriter is also interesting because Metatron + typewriter = 9x18 with the bubble universe.

I feel it’s probably been symbolic of what it was literally used for in that episode for a long time. :D

* * *

Ah so Dean is not just “checking it out” - he already has the weapon ready to kill the djinn (which is doing a great job of peering mockingly through the windows behind Dean :P) - I can’t remember exactly what it is, but his knife already has blood on it so I’m assuming it’s one of those “dip x weapon in y blood” methods. Which means whatever Sam said, Dean went so far as to prepare for killing a djinn (did he already know how to kill one? So Sam was just confirming it to him?) and Dean is going in there intending to get the hunt over and done with before Sam ever gets involved.

Maybe pay back for Sam having him on lock down for a season - now Dean is out and about and Sam’s lurking in a motel room, he’s seizing the moment to do the dangerous thing without Sam around.

* * *

Welp, that was silly, Dean.

* * *

Well of course you can’t sleep if you leave scary monster movies playing in the background.

*waves at Carmen*

*spends a few more futile minutes squinting at Dean’s non-magic amulet*

Dean plays guitar, likes the colour brown (unless this is Carmen’s place and he moved into it - likely) and probably is the one who plays the guitar. The side table seems to have big shades and a tiny hat on on it. 

Is that a fancy ashtray on the coffee table? If so are those packs of cigarettes next to the lamp?

* * *

I wonder what’s up with Sam and this guy called Christopher Cooper? He’s clearly a good friend - probably work friend - as one of his emails says “Sammy” as the title line, though another is a very formal “S. Winchester” with some official looking bumf.

  


Sam is clearly very lonely since his last 3 social correspondences are from Christopher Cooper and yet the message is all about how they haven’t talked in ages. I have to assume he and Jess communicate some other way, perhaps walkie talkie if they’re out and about and want the other to bring milk and eggs home.

(I would ASSUME she was left out for the sake of not revealing she was in Sam’s phone as a recent contact but what is in there instead is weird.)

* * *

Perhaps - ha ha - this is Sam’s work phone only, and it’s just that much more ironic that the number Dean knows for Sam as his main phone goes through to this impersonal work phone for AU!Sammy.

Since this episode weirdly establishes that the reason they’re so great together is their enforced working relationship, and without it they’d drift apart. (Compare to It’s A Terrible Life where they were intentionally separated in an “AU” for the whole sake of making them get back together with the focus, again, on their  _working_  relationship. Hm.)

* * *

Aaand the first reference to AU!Dean’s probable drinking problem. This would be much less depressing if he hadn’t ended up with an actual drinking problem later in the show. This just feels like grim foreshadowing now.

Sam laughs sort of fondly about Dean calling him, I suppose because he hasn’t seen him in ages, and kind of misses him? He doesn’t seem too worried, so Dean being weird like this is apparently quite expected and normal?

* * *

I like this shot of Dean being tall and confused in his house.

Not sure how but it sort of makes him look like he doesn’t quite fit. Especially being juxtaposed against a bowl of fruit, when Dean and food has always been unhealthy crap, and here he is with a huge bowl of healthy stuff in the foreground.

* * *

Ahaha Dean getting sent bills in the mail.

* * *

I like how he panicked so put on multiple layers with the available clothes he could find.

* * *

Uhoh… He found the photo. *quietly sobbing for Dean from now until the end of the episode*

Dean’s face is going to kill me one of these days.

Mary has a weird out of focus glow to her.

“Are you okay?” “I don’t know”… Dean’s  _voice_  is going to kill me one of these days.

She came into focus after they actually started talking.

… Nope, she’s out of focus again.

“Let me ask you a question. When I was a kid, what did you always tell me when you put me to bed?”

*quietly takes a deep breath*

“I told you angels were watching over you.”

*screams*

*screams louder because he got to hug her*

I mean, Dean KNOWS he’s in a figment caused by a djinn but at this point I think he doesn’t get that it’s potentially just a figment? Does he know exactly how they work or just that they grant wishes as he was saying on the drive over to the abandoned warehouse? The fact that the djinn dream constructs it as such a plausible alternate universe that it includes that if Dean wasn’t a hunter but it was the real world people still would have died from all the cases they didn’t work… With real world awfulness still leaching into it no wonder he has such a hard time convincing himself it’s just a dream.

I can’t remember if Sam has powers in this AU, or if Dean ever asks, but I suppose the assumption is that without the nursery fire you track it back to without Mary’s demon deal, and therefore its a weird AU where I suppose she and John were put together by the cupids, but Azazel never latched onto the family and made the deal.

* * *

Unless that  _did_  happen but Mary never walked in on Azazel (heeding the warning from the time travelling Dean) and this is the AU of that, where they never became hunters, and Azazel was surprisingly uninterested in them because despite their bloodline they were totally normal people, and so they were much more of a long shot than the raised as hunters warriors he got in the main universe. Aside from a few random creepy death dreams he quickly waved aside, Sam’s been unaffected by the plot.

…

I should stop poking the AU’s logic, it’s just a figment.

* * *

“You don’t think that wishes can…” Yeah, Dean is working on the assumption it’s a literal AU for a while.

* * *

I love their collection of dorky old photos.

But never as much as Dean’s  _total_  fail about talking about John being dead. OH GOOD HE’S DEAD.

Seriously, since Mary immediately jumped onto the idea he was drinking as well, his family probably would have staged an intervention if this went on for more than a week. I know Dean’s adaptable but his trauma is  _massive_  and if he’d lived in this universe for months they’d have only seen more and more stuff to make them concerned.

Maybe the obvious stuff would stop jumping out and he’d at least get better schooling his expression but stuff would keep happening where he hadn’t grown up in this universe.

… Carmen would be a huge issue. Even if Dean did eventually fall in love with her he’d be missing the whole first round of their relationship.

* * *

I love how he has the dorky Christmas photo right in front of him for when he wakes up.

* * *

This whole episode is an exercise in surviving his tragic face. He looks so  _confused and hopeful and sad_ in seconds after he woke up.

* * *

> PROFESSOR   
> Supposedly, yes. I mean they have godlike power. They can alter reality however they want. Past. Present. Future.

Hm, after 10x20 we were talking about the Grigori and Djinn probably being related. This is pretty similar to what Bobby said about the Trickster, and  _he_  turned out to be an angel. And the Djinn have always been disproportionately powerful of the monsters they encounter, although it does turn out to only be an illusion in Dean’s mind, it’s still extremely solid with its own rules of reality and internal consistency. 

They’re linked to demons in this episode but it’s definitely something more along the lines of what angels can do. I still like the theory that Djinn split off from angels in the same way as Grigori did but Eve got to them and changed them.

(Like way way back when.)

It could also, since the Grigori were accessing souls and Djinn just drink blood I think, but with the need to have people in this state, have been a devolution - if angels get more human as they’re cut off from Heaven but still have some baseline powers, they could have transformed over time. They could also be nephilim-related.

WHO KNOWS.

I am still fascinated about this. :P

* * *

*adds the professor to the list of people asking Dean if he was drinking* He doesn’t know him in the same way as the others but I think in this case it’s just for thematic emphasis?

* * *

 _Immediately_ after Dean decides he and Baby are civilians he sees the girl in white.

I am curious if Baby has the old number plates immediately after Dean changed them just this episode in the real world.

* * *

Ah, Dean works at a garage. I suppose this is where one of his more popular AU professions comes from. He’s a smart guy - I still think this was part of the realistic expectations based on his terrible self-esteem the Djinn gave this universe, like if Dean had been happy and well-adjusted and working a good job as a result of his proper upbringing he wouldn’t have given it the time of day. He expects himself to be awful and that there’s something inherently rubbish about himself that would have stopped him achieving in the same way Sam did, and so the universe reflects that. But Dean - even AU!Dean - does not reflect this universe.

* * *

*Mary quietly extremely concerned about Dean*

She probably fought him to make him do his chores and mow the lawn.

* * *

Ahaha What a Wonderful World is playing while he mows the lawn. This is something gifsets don’t capture. Just the terrifying over-saturated colours.

* * *

DORKY AU!SAM! Curly AU!Jess!

Her hair is huge. I guess they really went at it with curling tongs to make sure she didn’t look  _so_  much like Mary? I swear her curls were looser in the Pilot.

* * *

Sam’s shirt is actually offensively yellow. This is why we can’t have nice things. DESATURATE THIS NOW.

I am also quite amused because Sam spends 100% of the early seasons until like season  _six_  with perpetually unwashed looking hair, and it’s all clean and fluffy here and he just looks  _weird_.

* * *

This AU is seriously out to get Dean, by dropping him in on Mary’s birthday without telling him. He was just casually celebrating mowing the lawn by having a well-earned beer (and hey mowing the lawn could be a favour for his Mom on her birthday!) and Sam walks in on the scene and challenges Dean about it all.

Maybe in this AU they all  _think_  Dean is an alcoholic but it’s all exactly the same level of misunderstandings as this but through his whole adult life.

* * *

I mean while we’re on the subject of alcoholism in the subtext, Carmen’s  _existence_  as his girlfriend. He had El Sol in his hand when Sam showed up, and now she’s sitting next to him at dinner as his plus one. :P

* * *

Dean’s smart shirt and tie for going to dinner though. And he’s not under cover. 

Sam’s hair has normalised a bit. He’s run his finger through it a few times and it’s at least back to the normal shape.

* * *

> CARMEN   
> Okay. What do you say, later we get you a cheeseburger?
> 
> DEAN   
> Oh God, yes. How did I end up with such a cool chick?
> 
> CARMEN   
> Just got low standards.

*sigh* 

I suppose this is better than some awful heartbreaking ending than what happened to Donna in the library episode of Doctor Who with her AU husband.

(He was real but they never met IRL and it was gutting :P)

* * *

Obviously my concerns about Dean’s ongoing life in this AU is about it being a wish and not a dream because yikes if he lived out the rest of his life in the dream as it is in the actual show, the girl he keeps seeing is going to actually convince him he’s going mad. The actual awfulness of this dream is what made him wake up so the thought of him staying here past the episode is actually terrible given the terms and conditions he would have accepted.

* * *

I do wonder how Sam started wearing the yellow tie from the AU in the actual IRL of this show.

Accidental quirk of his tastes, probably, since they’re way behind in their tie-buying habits compared to where AU!Sam is at.

* * *

Aaw Dean no everyone is concerned you’re an alcoholic  _you are not helping your case by innocently suggesting you go get a drink_. 

* * *

I like Carmen and Jess wandering off talking to each other in the background. Not quite a Bechdel test pass since they’re muttering inaudibly as they disappear off screen, but it’s nice to know they have bonded, since they presumably did not know each other that well before this night. Friendships between ladies! \o/ *throws confetti*

* * *

> SAM   
> Okay. What’s gotten into you?
> 
> DEAN   
> What do you mean?
> 
> SAM   
> I mean this whole warm, fuzzy ecstasy-trip thing.

Eurgh, Dean and drugs reference.

> SAM  
> (backs away) No that, look, that’s all right man, I-I just… You know I’m not asking you to change. I-I just, uh, … I don’t know, I… guess we just don’t really have anything in common. You know?
> 
> DEAN   
> Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yes we do. Yes we do.
> 
> SAM   
> What?
> 
> DEAN   
> Hunting.
> 
> SAM   
> Hunting? I’ve never been hunting in my life, Dean.

I left that one comment on their actions in because BACKS AWAY. Argh, this is physically painful seeing AU!Sam actually backing off from Dean like he’s dangerous or weird just for wanting to be friends.

And he thinks Dean’s whole cheerful happy to see him demeanour is Dean trying to change, trying too hard to make it up to him for their previous terrible relationship, but AU!Sam doesn’t want Dean to not be himself - as far as he sees our Dean being out of character for AU!Dean… He’s fine having a useless brother who steals from him and gets drunk and makes the occasional weird phonecalls, because that’s just what Dean does… Actually spending time with him though?

(Dean slips up  _again_  in his desperation and forgets to contextualise their world by bringing up hunting - I told you he wouldn’t do well here long-term :P)

* * *

Nooo and then Carmen hands him an El Sol and he says “My favourite. I guess you know me pretty well.”

Carmen stop being symbolic of his impending alcoholism because this is tragic and I won’t stand for it.

She’s probably right thought about him and Sam just not spending time together - Dean can be a jerk to Sam all he wants in the real world but they’re stuck together so they just have to ride it out.

Carmen is so sweet. :(

Poor imaginary wish fulfilment character. :(

She’s about as real as the random scantily clad ladies the Trickster summoned up. Apparently you have to go on many dates, settle down, move in together and be comfy and domestic before Dean will hit that when you’re an imaginary figment.

Which is kinda cute of him. :P

* * *

Nooo here comes the bad news about all the stuff they ever did being invalidated.

…AAAAH Taylor from Playthings nooooooooooooo. *sobbing*

And Dean’s wardrobe full of dead people.

There’s probably some sort of metaphor here for PTSD or something - in the deep metaphorical sense that he’s actually on the job and this all has a purpose and there’s nothing actually wrong with him in that sense. But it shows him living the normal life and being haunted by people who are hurt and need saving, and the horrors of his past shown to him all as failures… Like how in season 8 Crowley was killing the people they saved - from season 1 and 2 especially - to invalidate everything they’d done… Dean was so upset about the people he couldn’t save last episode (and it was highlighted that he always has sympathy for the victims of the evil he fights by giving Sam the “so what? they’re convicts.” stance to show just how deep it went for Dean and how he genuinely meant it when he was upset at their deaths he witnessed at close hand, and tried bonding with them before they died and so on). This episode follows on from the last in shoving Dean back into hunting, because of course these deaths were prevented, but they stand for the deaths that would follow if he gave up. If Dean retired to that normal life he secretly wished for, and built even a shade of this as his reality, then all those future deaths would weigh on him: every time he turned on the news and saw people had died in some horrible, unavoidable way, because no one else knows the truth and can save people like he does, they will will come to haunt him like the victims of the Djinn following him.

I think it’s so important he says he can fix things with Sam, and even after the horrible conversation with him, returns home with Carmen and still feels optimistic about his future while he thinks it’s a wish AU. But as soon as he finds out evil still exists in the background of this world and random people he’s never met are dying, his motivation changes.

* * *

What is the “E” in John E. Winchester for?

* * *

This is a 2 tear scene.

* * *

> All of them. Everyone that you saved, everyone Sammy and I saved. They’re all dead. And there’s this woman, that’s haunting me. I don’t know why. I don’t know what the connection is, not yet anyway. It’s like my old life is, is coming after me or something. Like it like it doesn’t want me to be happy. Course I know what you’d say. Well, not the you that played softball but… “So go hunt the Djinn. He put you here, it can put you back. Your happiness for all those people’s lives, no contest. Right?” But why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? What about us, huh? What, Mom’s not supposed to live her life, Sammy’s not supposed to get married? Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad? It’s… Yeah… 

* * *

Remembering that Dean still thinks this is a wish verse is the worst, because his happiness has been compromised, and now he knows he has to go wish himself back to the horrible universe, all for the sake of other people. See above: “Screw the job, I’m sick of the job anyway. We don’t get paid, we don’t get thanked. The only thing we get is bad luck.”

This is Dean’s journey for the season: completely and utterly giving away every shred of himself to one cause or another.

Come cry with me.

* * *

Ahahaha and the Pilot parallel with AU!Sam in bed with Jess. Haaaaaa.

He looks way more scared and has a bat because he’s never been brought up fighting. So Dean levels him in one good throw to the floor, and Sam doesn’t fight back unlike the Pilot.

“I was looking for a beer”… DEAN IS JUST JOKING ABOUT THE PILOT. AU!SAM THIS IS NOT ABOUT HIS ALCOHOLISM OH MY GOD.

(He didn’t say anything on that note - he was pretty snarky about Dean looking for one in the china cabinet - but the amount of accidental alcoholism Dean implies through this episode for completely innocent reasons is  _staggering_.)

Sam’s still got his huge arms from a life of hunting because you can’t just make Jared wimpy since Sam’s done nothing but study all his life.

* * *

> DEAN   
> You want the truth?
> 
> SAM   
> Yeah, yeah I do.
> 
> DEAN   
> I owe somebody money.
> 
> SAM   
> Who?
> 
> DEAN   
> A bookie. I lost big on a game, I gotta bring him the cash tonight.
> 
> SAM   
> I can’t believe we’re even related.
> 
> DEAN   
> Sam, I’m sorry.

*sobbing about Dean just going with the idea he’s realised everyone has of the life he lead in the wish AU*

* * *

Sam might be a law student wimp, but as soon as Dean makes it sound like he might actually die Sam is right there with him in the car because you can’t change Sam. :’)

…

In the soul deep down where it matters. *waves farewell to “Bitch” “Jerk” and it’s inglorious end* May you live on endlessly in fan fiction.

* * *

e n d l e s s l y

* * *

Including Crowley’s fan fiction.

* * *

I think the funniest thing in the show is that Dean has a tupperware container of blood. Like,  _tupperware_. Not some random skanky glass jar or borrowed medical bottle or in later seasons how there are fancy stoppered containers. We’re in the domestic AU and so he has a  _tupperware_  container of blood.

* * *

Sam’s freak out about Dean having a tupperware container of blood is hilarious.

Justified but hilarious.

* * *

And Dean throwing the phone out the window. Flawless. :D

* * *

I don’t like it.

* * *

Dean you total dork making a “not in Kansas any more” joke.

Since relocating to the Bunker, which means they cross out of Kansas’s state lines zillions of times on the regular now, do you think he still does it?

…

He almost certainly does it every time.

* * *

A repeat of the typewriter shot! But slightly less dark and murky with the AU colours. 

Dean telling Sam to stay behind him when the Djinn grabbed him from behind last time.

Sam is now convinced at least that something horrible is going on.

* * *

Oh no Deeean. He’s finally figured it out. :(

Which, actually eases the upfront emotional problem he has without wishing himself out of it. Like, he doesn’t have to ask or undo anything concrete.

Aaurgh no because of course the other, much less explored side of Dean’s giving up wasn’t just wanting to not hunt - he expressed a lot of suicidal sounding thoughts in Croatoan when he was waiting it out with Sam. And here we have him threatening to stab himself to wake himself back up.

I suppose it could be like a metaphorical fever breaking thing in terms of he does it to get himself back to the real world to commit to hunting again after having his hero’s call wake up he had needed all season.

BUT he’s literally an episode away from selling his soul for Sam now, so this is just foreshadowing build up. Dean killing himself in this reality to give himself back over to the job fully: it’s a sacrifice one episode early. This to the job, then the next episode for Sam.

* * *

Assuming AU!Sam has a consciousness (he presumably does not and he’s switched over to being a protective programming function of the Djinn dream now anyway now Dean’s cottoned on) imagine what it would be like to hear someone deciding your level of reality is the wrong one and threatening to kill themselves to get off it and back to their own, but to you your whole life is contained there, and you have no evidence your life is anything but the AU.

…

This takes me back to the thoughts on Dean as the literal centre of the universe once again. Here he actually is: the one guy with a consciousness in a world populated by figments. He has the power to end reality for them.

I honestly went into this rewatch from the Pilot onwards assuming I’d find a lot of good thoughts for Sam as the centre of the universe but it’s mostly been Dean or both of them, but since there’s little bits like this which lean towards Dean… :P

* * *

Oh gross the knife still has lamb’s blood on it.

…

LAMB. Because SACRIFICE.

UUUGH. I am done with the symbolism. :P And I suppose we have to talk about how it’s Mary’s knife but I’m blanking on how this specifically is symbolic.

* * *

Dean has another “really pretty sure” moment like last episode where they said it twice, except he doesn’t actually say it this time. I’m disappointed they didn’t use the same phrasing. :P

* * *

Sam has the power to summon Mary now. Well, he summons a trinity of figment women. Jess for Sam’s imaginary happiness, Carmen for Dean’s imaginary happiness, and Mary to bind them all together.

There’s an anvil between them.

* * *

Oh look the colour is all gone from the world again.

Welcome back Dean!

“There’s no place like home.”

Dean you…. dork.

* * *

I’d say it’s nice to have Sam back and badass again but the Djinn almost gets him before Dean gets his revenge on it.

There’s a question… What would Sam’s world have been like?

* * *

Oh MAN the El Sol slogan.

Bye Carmen.

* * *

While I’m in a screenshotting mood… I like these:

* * *

> DEAN   
> I know. But I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay so bad. I mean, ever since Dad… all I c– all I can think about is how much this job’s cost us. We’ve lost so much. We’ve… sacrificed so much.

Boo. :(

We end on a note of Sam reminding Dean that it’s worth it to be able to save people, which is the conclusion that drove Dean, so even if it hurts, they’re right back on the same page when it comes to hunting and being committed to the job! Yay! 

*dooooooooooom*


	21. 2x21

I’m just going to whoosh through these as best I can because my heart won’t take it and also I’m really behind. :P

* * *

This episode has a road so far montage which has different music. But they’re going to do it properly next episode anyway.

The montage is entirely special children stuff, and ends with Dean like “Dammit Sam this whole thing is spinning out of control” from like… 10/11 episodes ago.

It’s been a  _really_ quiet season for following the main plot.

* * *

While we’re still thinking about all the awesome black and red colouring from this season:

  


* * *

It’s such a normal inconspicuous building. No one can know that it’s the actual end of any happiness they will ever even pretend to have ever agaaaain.

*might be acting melodramatic but on the other hand have you seen seasons 3-10?*

* * *

You know what, this was the dumbest conversation they have ever had fighting about extra onions and pie but I think as a ridiculous brother moment, is it an acceptable final conversation? Like, is that how Sam would have wanted Dean to remember him? One last >:| face for the road?

Or was it the deep dissatisfaction that “BRING ME SOME PIE” was the last thing Dean ever said to Sam that caused him to bring him back?

* * *

Aah another instance where the sound track is the actual car radio. :D

(Another meta sign that Dean is the centre of the universe? Or the car is anyway?)

All it takes is a second to take your eyes off him…

Oh no, Dean’s already wearing that plaid shirt.

It’s probably symbolic somehow that this café is sitting in the middle of a flood?

I find it nice of the demons to wait for Sam n Dean to split up so they didn’t just grab Sam and kill Dean. 

* * *

Sam’s wearing that omnipresent season ½ jacket which we’re never going to see again.

They finally found a way to make Sam look tiny:

I’d love someone to mess around with the tilt shift effect on that. :3

* * *

I’m really intrigued by the idea of ghost towns. We really don’t have that here. There’s a few towns that were abandoned after the Black Death and those have all understandably rotted into the ground or been reclaimed as normal towns again in the centuries since. This season already had the Roanoke thing, and now it’s got a slightly more historically recent one… It’s this whole chunk of ghost lore we can’t really get over here (I suppose we get an abundance of haunted castles and stuff instead). Anyway the idea of a country full of abandoned towns for any reason (usually disease or economic problems, right?) is fascinating, but then throw in ghosts or demons driving out an entire town… It’s great world building for the idea that once upon a time it was a much greater threat. And somehow (at least until things get worse with the Apocalypse arc) the modern world is much less at threat of demons killing whole towns.

Although, these timeframes don’t match up BUT if Croatoan implied Roanoke was abandoned because of the virus implying previous attempts to kickstart the apocalypse, maybe the burst of demon activity that ended up with the abandoned town was a similar thing…

In which case if it’s happened almost every other generation for centuries, Sam n Dean really were doofuses for finally actually getting it properly started.

Although they were the result of an intensive breeding program to increase the inevitability of it at each turn. Perhaps along the way various offshoot branches of the Campbells and Winchesters had an unfortunate child who got put through the ringer.

I don’t think this gets an exact date but I wonder how it matches up with when Samuel Colt was around making his hell gate? He could have known that containing the site was really important because of general current events. After all, he had 2 demons coming to try stop him just in the 3 minutes of footage we saw of him in Frontierland. :P

Let’s just assume the world has cycles of demon-related weirdness aimed towards the apocalypse on a regular basis until the Winchesters came along and ruined everything. 

* * *

Anyway Sam goes snooping around like he’s on holiday and visiting some sort of historical site.

With a bit more carrying around a plank of wood to hit people with.

HEY ANDY.

Hey he called it Frontierland too. 

Heheh he’s high as well… Very helpful.

* * *

I wonder how Ava managed to lock herself in that cupboard. Well she can control demons so maybe she just made one do it?

* * *

They really should have checked with everyone else to see how long they’d been there by comparing last dates they remembered and found out she was the only one who’d been missing for five months.

* * *

Hey Jake and Lily. Poor one off characters.

Hehe Andy says “get this.”

Since he has to concentrate to beam stuff to people, that means Andy has been happily thinking about gay porn every hour of the day for his own amusement. Maybe not to get off because that would be weird, but he certainly suggests he’s familiar with it enough to beam accurate depictions/memories of videos he’s watched to the other guy. If he wasn’t concerned with gay porn in the first place, he’d probably think of something else troublesome to beam into his head. Queer!Andy. It’s a thing. 

* * *

Poor Lily. I assume her special powers don’t work on the other special children since none of the others with powers that can affect other people can use them on special children.

What I’m saying is Lily/Ava ship.

* * *

Ash! How’s it going? I still go with the headcanon he was passing on info to other hunters like Gordon about Sam. This does not negate him actually helping them with the main demon problem: merely that he might think Sam is also a problem worth investigating and stopping. Probably a D&D alignment to go with that to explain it, like chaotic good or lawful neutral.

You know the fact he says he can’t talk over the line and then gets killed anyway really means he should have just told him.

* * *

… So Bobby just abandons his truck on the side of the road and hops in the Impala… It’s a  _huge_  truck and a narrow road.

I suppose him tailing Dean around would make it look too much like season 1′s end with John and we’re not supposed to be that overt about him sneaking in as a replacement father figure but one who’s actually helpful. :P

* * *

To be honest if Ava controls demons and Jake sees one right when he storms off trying to leave, and ends up investigating instead, it seems likely she’d be herding him.

Wow this school room is creepy.

Okay, so everyone’s seen a demon now. A really weird kind of demon that literally never comes up in canon again.

Sam randomly knows the bizarre rare type of demon thing it was.

And then also knows the history of Cold Oak at a glance of the bell. This is like Dean dropping non-stop pop culture references in the hollywood/prison episodes. Like, finally! My time has come!

* * *

Lily really does seem to be written as the weakest link all the way through. Poor Lily. :( 

* * *

Oops, Roadhouse is gone.

Everyone know you know is deeead.

* * *

Lily’s excellent adventure wandering around in the woods! Let’s just say she has a picnic and eeeverything is fine. No tragic queers! \o/

* * *

Hmm. *looks suspiciously at Ava controlling the demon* Why do psychic powers cause you to massage your temples to make them work? Like, it sort of makes sense but where did that come from as a common trope?

* * *

Aww Andy and Jake are bonding. Andy is SO PROUD OF HIMSELF for finding the salt.

He’s probably still kinda high tbh.

* * *

Poor Lily. :( Precious cinnamon roll etc.

* * *

Ava, stop over-acting about this. >.> 

She’s trying too hard to look like the weakest link here; compared with Lily’s genuine flake out it looks so OTT.

It’s still annoying that the 2 female characters were both all wimpy and terrible about this even if Ava did turn out to have turned into a hardened fighter by the end.

* * *

I like how Sam’s just casual about Dean’s signature being D Hasselhoff.

> ANDY: Yeah. [He looks at the signature on the receipt.] D. Hasselhoff?
> 
> SAM: Yeah, that’s Dean’s signature. [beat] It’s hard to explain.
> 
> ANDY: All right.

But, like, Andy knows what they does, so “it’s a fake ID” would cover this and  _not_  be hard to explain, but the fact that there’s apparently a story to suggest there’s a reason to explain it but it would be difficult, and the fact that this is actually offered  _as_  Dean’s signature like, his actual permanent, signs things with it by default signature that is more than just scribbling something down mindlessly… I WANT TO KNOW THE STORY. Why is Dean’s signature D Hasselhoff in particular and  _what’s hard to explain_???

* * *

Dean is now psychic! \o/

I like the extremely good timing with him asking how they’ll ever find Sam. I think the universe waits for them to ask these questions.

* * *

I am 100% convinced Dean says “Fuck, I think I saw something,” and it slipped by due to Jensen’s habit of mumbling.

* * *

I like how Bobby instantly knows Cold Oak as well. Headcanons of him and Sam sharing nerdy ghost knowledge together in some of those days where they were just around Bobby’s with nothing to do.

Dean’s like, “What are you doing?”

“Research.”

“For what?”

“Fun.”

Dean: o.0

*Bobby and Sam stare at him until he leaves them alone*

* * *

Aw Jake bonding with everyone. I know he ends up killing Sam but it was all desperation on his part and he seems to be genuinely nice and getting on with Sam and being a decent bloke at this point despite the fact he’ll stab him by the end of the episode. He never seemed evil like Ava kinda went. I don’t know if that’s just because guys get more emotional attention than the girls, because Ava probably had a  _really complex_  moral slide and we skip 5 months of that and just meet her when she’s rolling with the whole demon thing and actively deceiving them.

* * *

Anyway she was already doing evil things before Sam told her about her bed-ridden fiancé not making it.

* * *

I like how Yellow Eyes gets a special light on his face in his reintroduction to highlight the eyes.

* * *

I love Sam challenging Azazel to just kill him on the spot.

Azazel admits he’s playing favourites with Sam. It’s too early in this cycle of the universe to make Hunger Games jokes, unfortunately. I really feel like we were robbed by this happening in… 2007? Ish?

* * *

Though perhaps they wouldn’t have done it like this exactly if that was so current.

* * *

I still think, whatever Kripke says about plotting in advance, Azazel telling Sam he only needs the 1 soldier was left intentionally  _extremely_  vague so that whatever happened to Sam down the line, he was the victor of this tournament and therefore destined for  _something._ Boy King Sam leading Hell’s armies? Sure. Helpless meatsuit for Lucifer? Equally plausible! Both at once with a proper season of Lucifer!Sam? Who even cares! Right now all we know is Sam’s going to be EXTRA SPECIAL by the end of the season and it’s all about Dean’s problem for season 3 so there’s plenty of time to work out what this was actually supposed to be about. :P

* * *

> AZAZEL: Well, I couldn’t just come out and say that, could I, Sam? I had to let everyone think they had a fighting chance. But what I need … is a leader.
> 
> SAM: To lead who?
> 
> AZAZEL: Oh, I’ve already got my army. Or, I will soon, anyway.

He goes on to try and open the Hellgate so I’m guessing step one was an evil special child commanding the demons and they’d be let in to the Lucifer plot? Ruby clearly would have shown up to assist/guide/tell them everything and be their useful second in command… Except when the Hellgate opened the “chosen one” was still one of the good guys, and Azazel was dead, so there was no chance of commanding the minions properly - I guess because Azazel was the one most involved with this army side of things. I think Lilith always knew what to do but wanted to do it more clandestinely anyway - she knew all the lore pretty much, or at least would have been off learning it? (She seemed to be breaking the seals at random and was alarmed to find out she was the last one? So it might have been a work in progress?) Either way she didn’t seem connected to the army in the same way and didn’t want Sam leading it - Ruby’s job the whole time seemed to be preparing Sam to be Lucifer’s vessel against his knowledge since he hadn’t gone actually darkside and even when he was  _pretty dark_  she had him there because he thought he was doing it for the right reasons…

So yeah, Azazel’s actual plan completely and utterly flops at this point; the end goal still gets achieved in the long run but I think Lucifer probably had a worse time at it with the apocalypse, like it could have all rolled out much smoother if Azazel’s plan had worked, as he’d have arrived with an army and a willing vessel.

* * *

Aaah, Sam’s entire life so far summed up in a few after lines:

> AZAZEL:   
> That’s why I’m here, Sam. I wanna give you the inside track. You’re tough. You’re smart. You’re well-trained, thanks to your daddy. Sam – Sammy – you’re my favorite.
> 
> SAM:   
> You ruined my life. You killed everyone I love.
> 
> AZAZEL:   
> The cost of doing business, I’m afraid. I mean, sweet little Jessica – she just had to die. You were all set to marry that little blonde thing, become a tax lawyer with two kids, a beer gut, and a little McMansion in the suburbs. I needed you sharp, on the road, honing your skills. Your gifts.
> 
> SAM:   
> What about my mom?
> 
> AZAZEL:   
> That was bad luck.
> 
> SAM:   
> Bad luck?
> 
> AZAZEL:   
> She walked in on us. Wrong place, wrong time.
> 
> SAM:   
> What does that mean?
> 
> AZAZEL:   
> It wasn’t about her. It was about you. It’s always been about you.

Poor Sam. :<

* * *

Azazel’s frustration at Sam still yelling at Mary even after he told him it was all just a vision is so amusing. Like, “Wow, I said he was my favourite and he’s still a dunce.”

…

He’s demanding if it’s true he has demon blood or not when he just saw it with his own eyes.

…

Heeey that bit where he finds out Mary knew Azazel. That one doesn’t get answered until season 4! 

Honestly day by day it’s impossible to tell what they planned or not. :P

* * *

Oh no, Ava’s gone bad. Well.

Andy noooooooo. :<

Oh! Sam says Ava is the only one with missing time so they DID check, they just weren’t suspicious until too late.

I like Ava’s little evil tear flick.

I think Azazel kept Sam back for the very last batch partially because Dean would come looking for him (or, well, he should have killed Dean in that case :P) but also because Sam is rubbish and never practiced his powers, so despite being a good fighter, he’s still actually one of the worse special children in terms of powers…

He moved a wardrobe once.

> SAM:   
> Fighting what?
> 
> AVA:   
> Who we are, Sam. If you’d just quit your hand-wringing and open yourself up, you have no idea what you can do.

This sounds like something Ruby would say.

* * *

Hey, Dean and Bobby found Cold Oak. Woo! They’ll save them.

…

Nope, Jake’s been got to by Azazel.

What would happen if Jake and Sam just chilled together and never left? Domestic AU where…

* * *

Dean could bring them snacks and stuff.

* * *

Jake still offers that he could go kill Sam and then go off and kill Azazel, like, hey, I’m a good guy. I’d kill you but only for the greater good of killing the demon.

* * *

Not sure it was a good idea to put their weapons down when Sam is so outmatched. Like I said, Azazel was keeping him back because he’s precious and also kinda useless. :P

Ouch. Poor Sam.

Oh good, Jake’s knocked out. Now we can go. 

Yay everything will be fine.

* * *

Sam is the official worst at not killing a guy when he’s down to save his own life.

Aw look Dean’s here! Everything is okay!

…

Well that lasted long.

Bye Sam.

* * *

Aside from the time you could see his soul visibly leave his body in Hollywood Babylon this is his first Winchester death!

* * *

Dean stop it, you’re being extremely depressing to watch.

* * *

RIP the brown jacket. :<


	22. 2x22

*transitions immediately to the next episode to minimise the amount of time Dean spends currently mourning Sam in the back of my mind*

* * *

Considering we don’t know what’s going to happen yet at all and the Colt and crossroads haven’t been mentioned since the first half of the season that’s pretty spoilery foreshadowing to catch you up.

“Don’t you cry no more!”

*Dean crying everywhere* “Saaaaaaaaam”

It’s pretty terrible advice right now.

* * *

Poor dead Sam.

Poor dead-inside Dean.

“No thanks I’m fine.”

Aah the grand tradition of Winchester “Fine”. But he will drink! 2x20 was foreshadowing.

* * *

Dean’s look when Bobby says they should bury Sam. :<

Has he ever worn that plaid since?

* * *

More importantly, are they still in the haunted ghost town, or they relocated a little ways down the road?

* * *

> BOBBY   
> Something big is going down – end-of-the world big.
> 
> DEAN   
> Well, then let it end!
> 
> BOBBY   
> You don’t mean that.
> 
> DEAN   
> You don’t think so? Huh? You don’t think I’ve given enough? You don’t think I’ve paid enough? I’m done with it. All of it. And if you know what’s good for you, you’d turn around, and get the hell out of here.

Welp that is 2x20′s message all over again. Dean made his choice to come back to save people and save the world, but it turns out it’s always been conditional on Sam being alive.

Don’t think about him regretting leaving the dream right about this point.

* * *

Hey Jake! Hope you feel terrible about stabbing Sam!

He’s transitioned to civilian clothes - including a jacket rather reminiscent of the one Sam was wearing.

He’s currently the new Sam insofar as because he’s currently the champion of Azazel’s little game, he’s in the spot Sam should be occupying narratively.

* * *

Azazel immediately makes fun of him for asking if it’s a dream by saying he has a genius on his hands - so it’s not just Sam he thought was a dullard for asking obvious questions. :P

* * *

He also sounds a little bitter that Sam didn’t win. 

Hehe, “Go to Hell.” “Been there, done that.” I think that Azazel has the best answer to that one.

* * *

Jake sticks to his guns about wanting to kill Azazel for putting him through it all and making him kill Sam - but then Azazel threatens his family.

Important thing to note: Jake has a sister. So in this case, she’d be Michael’s vessel.

Imagine that AU.

Complicated boy king Jake going along with Azazel’s plan leading the army but always wanting out, only doing it to keep his sister safe.

His sister being primed by the angels to be Michael’s vessel. 

(Sam buried somewhere, Dean drinking himself into an early grave I guess?)

And then the awfulness when Jake and his sister meet as Lucifer and Michael and somewhere in the back of Lucifer’s mind (because of course Lucifer would make him see this) he finds out everything to keep his sister safe was for nothing.

Aaaaargh.

* * *

Thinking of Aaaargh we transition back to Dean’s hands down most depressing speech ever.

> You know, when we were little— and you couldn’t been more than 5— you just started asking questions. How come we didn’t have a mom? Why do we always have to move around? Where’d Dad go when he’d take off for days at a time? I remember I begged you, “Quit asking, Sammy. Man, you don’t want to know.”  
> I just wanted you to be a kid… Just for a little while longer. I always tried to protect you… Keep you safe… Dad didn’t even have to tell me. It was just always my responsibility, you know? It’s like I had one job… I had one job…  
> And I screwed it up. I blew it. And for that, I’m sorry.  
> I guess that’s what I do. I let down the people I love. I let Dad down. And now I guess I’m just supposed to let you down, too.  
> How can I? How am I supposed to live with that?  
> What am I supposed to do? Sammy. God.  
> What am I supposed to do?  
> WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?! 

*gross sobbing*

* * *

This is literally the super villain origin story right here.

* * *

Cut immediately to Dean driving to the crossroads to a really awesome soundtrack.

He may have been yelling that as a rhetorical question moments before, but I think he knew all along, from the moment Sam died, what he was “supposed” to do. John put the idea in his head from the very start of the season by doing it to Dean, and he’s this perfect mess of given up, suicidal for the entire season thanks to his extended, unwanted extra time in exchange for John’s life, and the proper seed has been there since he first talked to a crossroads demon. He might have only contemplated bringing John back at that point, but it’s like Sam dying practically  _tells_  him what he was given the extra time for. :(

* * *

Hey second crossroads demon!

Either this or the 2x08 one has been speculated to be Crowley, mostly for the lols of his stealing a kiss from Dean.

… I think that was speculation I read last hellatus before Drowley was rather more alarmingly present in the text as more than a joke.

* * *

After Dean says 5 years she looms in to not-kiss him as a tease - if he’d just glomped her and kissed before she could pull away would that have counted and his deal would have only been up in season 7?

* * *

This was pretty much the most inevitable thing ever.

* * *

Sam examines his scars in the mirror - his back is all red and messed up. I suppose this heals later? Or they just stop paying attention to accurately depicting scars after a few episodes and it’s a miracle we saw the handprint more than once. :P

Either way there’s a contrast to be made to Dean’s resurrection: Sam’s left with the marks of it - he’s thrown back together and patched up, but no more than that. Dean was put back together perfectly, but left with a brand…

* * *

Also he seems to still be in a bit of internal distress considering how much he’s groaning and Dean squishes him and he’s like “ooowwwwh”

* * *

“What happened to me?” “Well what do you remember?” AKA: tell me what you know so I can expertly tailor my lie to fit.

* * *

Despite the crappy shack, they now not only have the bucket of fried chicken Bobby brought, but also boxes of Chinese takeaway. I have to say, if we assume they’re still in Cold Oak, it’s extremely well hooked up with fast food: I don’t understand how they were hungry and helpless there.

* * *

I’m guessing we’re meant not to assume they’re still in Cold Oak, except they’re in a decrepit building and no one’s said anything about them  _not_  being there.

* * *

> SAM   
> The demon said he only wanted one of us to walk out alive.
> 
> DEAN   
> He told you that?
> 
> SAM   
> Yep. He appeared in a dream.
> 
> DEAN   
> He tell you anything else?
> 
> SAM  
> No. No. That was it. Nothing else.

Yeah no one is keeping secrets in THIS room.

I like Sam’s “huh he appeared in a dream” thing - Sam gets demons appearing in his dreams, Dean gets angels. 

* * *

That “everyone we know is probably dead” conversation about the Roadhouse.

Woohoo. Love that collateral damage.

*gently pats my Charlie funko pop on the head* (We’re watching together.)

* * *

Bobby’s reactions to various supposedly dead Winchesters showing up on his doorstep are my favourite thing.

*stares extremely mistrustfully*

At least he doesn’t go for Sam with a knife like he did when Dean showed up in 4x01.

* * *

Oh look, Bobby’s truck made it back from when he ditched it somewhere at the beginning of last episode!

* * *

Bobby knows exactly what’s up :(

You can  _see_  his heart break when Dean says a year.

*sobs through this conversation* This is when Bobby officially becomes emotionally important to the show. He’s so SAD and HORRIFIED. :<

> BOBBY  
> What is it with you Winchesters, huh? You, your dad. You’re both just itching to throw yourselves down the pit.
> 
> DEAN   
> That’s my point. Dad brought me back, Bobby. I’m not even supposed to be here. At least this way, something good could come out of it, you know? I–I–It’s like my life could mean something.

:(

> BOBBY   
> What? And it didn’t before?! Have you got that low of an opinion of yourself? Are you that screwed in the head?! 

:)

* * *

> DEAN   
> I couldn’t let him die, Bobby. I couldn’t. He’s my brother.
> 
> BOBBY   
> How is your brother gonna feel when he knows your going to hell? How’d  _you_  feel when you knew your dad went for you?
> 
> DEAN   
> You can’t tell him. You take a shot at me, whatever you got to do, but please don’t tell him.

One of the things that will always kill me (in this whole beautiful conversation that kills me as a whole) is how Dean says Bobby should take a shot at him, but instead of hitting him, Bobby just looks like he’s actually about to start sobbing right then and there, and grabs his face and Dean leans into it like. Oh. Physical comfort.

Ouch.

Bobby does make a valid point about how Sam would feel about it, but Dean is just so completely past caring about himself - it’s the cruellest thing. He was made to feel so bad by what John did as to make himself not feel worth saving, to make him get past that point where he’d sell himself for Sam and figure it’s more worth it to be dead and have Sam alive and dealing with it…

Like, this is the start of the cycle - how we end up with Sam screaming about demons to trade for him when Dean is in Hell because once Dean is gone Sam’s in that same place, and when he can’t get a trade, he gets Ruby instead…

Eurgh.

Sam’s super villain origin story in this episode too, though he’d never suspect how if you told him. :P

* * *

Ellen! \o/ Someone else is not dead! Happy day!

There’s like 4 people all alive in the same room.

And Ellen was saved by pretzels.

* * *

I think we have Bobby’s slightly bigger house now? 

I’m not sure how but this feels more like home than last time we were here. Possibly just the books. :P

* * *

Jim Beaver is not quite as good at drawing stars even with guidelines - Jared is the best at stars, Jensen the worse. Now all we need is evidence of how well Misha might draw stars?

* * *

Endless list of aesthetically pleasing shots:

* * *

Awww Jake being given the gun and being taunted about being able to kill Azazel and go home. :( 

I can’t remember what happens to him. I guess Azazel probably kills him and not Sam and/or Dean? If one of them does kill him we REALLY do not talk about that enough, so I’m going to have to assume random demon happenstance and not murder by our main characters.

Oh, this is where Azazel talks him into going along with the evil plan. :( Now he’s not threatening his family, he’s offering to give them the world. And Jake makes that choice to do some bad for their gain. :( Baaah. Not that there’s a parallel with anyone else this episode deciding to throw themselves at Hell’s mercy for the sake of their family or anything.

* * *

* * *

Oops and here’s Jake freaked out by Sam being alive.

* * *

Now Jake’s decided to be evil his powers are suddenly so much easier to use. Also his eyes flash when he uses them, which is awesome but not something that ever happened before or after. Anyway, Ava’s powers magically amplified the moment she embraced evil. Sam found it a hard toil and needed all the demon blood, so makes you wonder if he’d actually just gone full evil, he’d have been that much more powerful? 

* * *

Kind of annoying how he changes to talking like a villain as well now he’s evil, and he’s all calm and collected. Does committing to evil really work that easily? Hmmm.

*side eyes slightly lazy characterisation or acting* I mean you’re a 2 episode bit part to turn evil and die, I suppose the actor didn’t feel like conveying anything extra than the surface stuff. Oh well.

* * *

Oh holy crap Sam shot him like eight times. We do  _not_  talk about this enough in our various discussions about the characters’ various slides into darkness and extremes. YIKES.

I suppose it had to be Sam because winning the Hunger Games: this does imply all other special children from his generation are now dead, and whether it’s an absorb their power thing or not, he’s the last one standing and it’s symbolic he did it. 

Also Jake did threaten Ellen and went all OTT evil and embraced the darkside and his powers. And, you know, killed Sam - he was never MEANT to be a hugely sympathetic character.

Still, all the special children we saw so far got very carefully  _not_  killed by our main characters, and now Sam just… shoots the guy. Dude.

If I remember correctly this was I guess to make Dean nervous he hadn’t brought Sam back right? I HONESTLY can’t remember their arcs from season 3 aside from the obvious (and season 3 is a mess) so I have no idea what this all is.

I did reblog or like something from the behind the scenes stuff [justanotheridijiton](http://tmblr.co/msbbZom6stVUaSwCo2j0eeQ) has been posting about Kripke saying he had a vague idea all along the end of the show (Swan Song in whatever form it was imagined as through the seasons up until it actually got written) would be evil Sam vs Dean, and I think for at least season 2 and 3 there were suggestions in the plot evil Sam might actually be Sam and his darkside slide would be all him? I mean season 3 especially has a lot of flailing about him being the anti-Christ and Gordon planted the seed already this season…

Anyway here we have Sam killing his final special child mirror - the one who took the bait and went darkside - mercilessly, which could be symbolic of him rejecting that path for himself, if not for the grim feeling from the suggestions Yellow Eyes has made for the last 2 episodes that this was a competition to be won, and Sam has just nominated himself for the top step of the podium.

* * *

I like how no one thought to pull the gun out of the door while it was still turning. At least Dean thought to grab it.

…

Did I just… imagine… the bit where Jake broke the Devil’s trap? I could have sworn the whole point was he snapped the rails, but they look freshly snapped when Azazel walks through, so I guess he just broke them from the outside? Did opening the door weaken the trap? I thought demons couldn’t fuck around with iron even in general when it’s not a trap? 

(… This is still at least 90% less confusing than Crowley getting out of the iron demon trap in the bunker’s basement in 9x23 despite the fact it was apparently fine later - at least when demon!Dean waltzed out of it he had an excuse :P)

ANYWAY I have a fake memory of this incident apparently. Well then. :P

(This is what happens when you watch certain episodes almost exclusively with talkative friends. I reeeally tend to skip to season 4 aside from a select handful of episodes if I’m casually re-watching on my own :P I guess my brain filled in a gap of a plot hole I missed… My imagination is a gift and a curse - I’m never sure what I’m talking about is real >.>)

* * *

Sam picks running to help Dean over helping Bobby and Ellen shut the gate to Hell. I mean what who said 8x23? :P

* * *

Is the smack Dean takes to his head the exact same place he had in 2x01?

  


(Image 1: Dean glaring at Azazel. Image 2: Dean glaring at John :P)

I feel this is probably intentional.

(maybe not the John - Azazel parallel involvement specifically but … Definitely something about Dean and his depressing little journey through season 2)

* * *

Especially since Azazel fixed that head injury that Dean was going to die of in 2x01 and then in 2x22 he causes the thump on Dean’s head when Dean is going to die again soon anyway because of Azazel’s games. Neither time he’s  _responsible_  for Dean’s death, but he’s certainly involved…

> AZAZEL  
> So, Dean… I gotta thank you. You see, demons can’t resurrect people, unless a deal is made. I know, red tape— it’ll make you nuts. But thanks to you, Sammy’s back in rotation.

* * *

While they’re talking Hell is  _emptying_  behind them.

You know, what with everything that follows, Crowley’s alliance with Cas in season 6 is very understandable from the perspective of the losses Hell took over the apocalypse. Most episodes, they were killing as many demons as Bobby said back in season 1 were possessing people in a YEAR.

I know we’re not meant to have a ton of sympathy for his position, but spare a thought for him maybe. :P

* * *

> AZAZEL  
> You of all people should know, that’s what’s dead, should stay dead. Anyway… thanks a bunch. I knew I kept you alive for some reason. Until now, anyway. I couldn’t have done it without your pathetic, self-loathing, self-destructive desire to sacrifice yourself for your family. 

This is practically life-affirming as far as supportive words go towards Dean >.>

And he knows exactly how the deal John made has been eating Dean up all season (Probably gets it’s part of why Dean did his deal in the first place).

* * *

I am hugely amused by the fight with John. He yoinks Azazel out of his meatsuit (omg we need more ghost vs demon fights) and then Azazel actually fights him off as a man-shaped cloud of demon smoke before jumping back into his meatsuit. I am crying with laughter. Sorry season 2. 

* * *

Woo Dean shot Azazel :D

It’s a good thing the door to Hell is self-locking.

* * *

Bye John. (Is is symbolic he disappears for good from their lives the same time Azazel does? It’s definitely the end of things for them.

Except for, like, all the worrying stuff in the aftermath, like Sam being potentially evil and Dean’s deal and all. But HEY revenge arc is over!)

* * *

Aw they didn’t prepare a speech for actually killing him. 

* * *

Uhoh here’s the big BM scene for the season. They’re leaning on the car and everything.

I am amused by how they never even found out Azazel’s name by this point. They’re  _still_  calling him “the demon”.

* * *

> SAM   
> You shouldn’t’ve done that. How could you do that?
> 
> DEAN   
> Don’t get mad at me. Don’t you do that. I had to. I had to look out for you. That’s my job.
> 
> SAM   
> And what do you think my job is?
> 
> DEAN   
> What?
> 
> SAM   
> You’ve saved my life over and over. I mean, you sacrifice everything for me. Don’t you think I’d do the same for you? You’re my big brother. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. And I don’t care what it takes, I’m gonna get you out of this. Guess I gotta save your ass for a change.
> 
> DEAN   
> Yeah.

Wahey. Dean doesn’t tell Sam that he can’t save him yet - I think they get reasonably deep into season 3 before that one comes out? In the mean time Dean lets Sam think that he has a shot at saving him - to pay the favour back. I guess in order to not get into the whole “what’s dead should stay dead”/”How is your brother gonna feel when he knows your going to hell? How’d  _you_  feel when you knew your dad went for you?” thing with Sam that Dean went through this season they have to direct his attention outward: he spends all of season 3 hoping to save Dean, right to the last minute, and so… Once again Sam’s arc is an out-ward focussed mission, Dean took the same response as an in-ward focussed emotional journey.

Probably have to give a nod to Dean trying to emotionally smooth things over for Sammy as pushing him into this as well, but maybe that’s a thought for when it comes up in season 3 - right now just commenting that this is probably a thing. :P Dean lies to Sam a lot through this episode and even now when the truth come out misses the most important detail - the one RELEVANT to Sam as it’s basically Sam can accidentally kill  _himself_  by breaking the deal with Dean thanks to the terms and conditions - in an attempt to protect Sam. In a way which really doesn’t, except for keeping something sad from him in an effort to make the most of things.

Anyway also good to have Sam make a response to Dean saying it’s his job - he repeats it over and over through this episode (and last episode when Sam died, and a few other times in the past leading up to this), and it’s all a part of the long-term programming, outside of the emotional battering Dean took this season, which lead to him selling his soul. Like, the circumstantial stuff was just a catalyst. Buuut… the response being rather than saying it shouldn’t be anyone’s job and a normal healthy relationship does not have them looking after each other to the point of giving up their entire life to the other, Sam just says, well I should do that for you too.

*makes a spiralling pattern with my finger to indicate the co-dependency really kicking off*

Yeah, they were raised up with mindsets to make them fall into it, but it’s all stuff that happens on screen in their adult lives that actually pushes them into the  _really_  awful cycle. … And you can track that back to John Winchester. :P

His farewell at the end there was all very moving and all for them, but it was pretty much entirely about the revenge - he came for the fight, he saw Azazel dead, and so his ghost moved on at peace. He doesn’t know that Sam died or that Dean sold his soul. He doesn’t know his part in selling his soul and setting Dean off in the emotional decline that would lead to selling his soul. John fading out there was basically him nope-ing away from his responsibilities as a father one last time after seeing his primary motivation of revenge that  _caused_  all these side problems with his boys completed. 

Sam n Dean can’t move on in the same way after revenge has been achieved, because, well, Sam didn’t know what to say at all, Dean came up with the line about “that was for our Mom” but at the end of the day it was a revenge they inherited - Dean had  _some_  memories of Mary, Sam none, and while that doesn’t devalue their emotional investment, there’s a lot of “you can’t miss what you never had”… And all they’ve known all their lives is their father’s revenge mission. This WOULD be the time in another story perhaps they’d move on and past it, but instead they’ve been left with this terrible aftermath, and an ongoing series of problems caused by their involvement, or revealed to go way beyond one tiny personal revenge mission.

So all they can do… is the whole “we’ve got work to do” thing. Onwards into season 3!

* * *

… which, I personally am not so fond of, and of course the narrative got scrunched up and there was all sorts of executive meddling and it’s a mess for someone whose main interest is narrative and emotional arcs. So I think I can get through it pretty quickly, maybe catch up with everyone for the apocalypse? WHO KNOWS.

Here ends my Serious Old School SPN Nostalgia anyhow.


End file.
